Animal Instinct
by Psycho Llama
Summary: Completed: Melissa awoke in a hospital with total amnesia and the unnatural ability to shapeshift into other creatures. On the run from Kroenen, she seeks assylum at the BPRD. Movie based. Finished! : D
1. Prologue

Animal Instincts

Psycho Llama

Disclaimer: Mike Mignola owns all but mousy. Yes, that **does** mean Mike Mignola owns the world. Flee; flee for your lives!

* * *

Prologue:

"Doctor? Doctor! Sir, someone broke into the hospital," the nurse called down the echoing corridor, her heels clicking against the polished floor.

"What?" the doctor looked confused, but quickly followed the nurse back to the scene, jogging lightly.

"In the East wing. A window was smashed and there's a body lying on one of the beds. She looks to be in her early-twenties, half-starved…and there are a number severed tubes hanging from her arms…" the nurse murmured, disturbed by what she had seen. She led the way to the room that had been broken in to.

The two of them stepped into the little ward lit only by moonlight from the broken window. Shards of broken glass lying shattered on the floor twinkled in the dim illumination. A dark-haired female figure lay sprawled on one of the hospital beds wrapped loosely in bed sheets.

The doctor ran over to the girl, checking for a pulse, but found none. The doctor frowned, "The body's still warm…" he turned to the nurse; "Get the shock paddles. She might still be in there."

The nurse hurriedly plugged the device in, the doctor grabbed the handles of the paddles and rubbed the two of them together, "Clear," he muttered before pressing the two paddles to the girl's chest, shocking her heart into beating again. Her pulse returned; stormy grey eyes shot open and an inhuman scream filled the air.

* * *

"What's going on, where am I?" the girl demanded, clutching the sheets to her bare figure and not yet aware of the severed tubes hanging out of her arms and sides.

"It's alright, you're safe now," the Doctor assured her kindly.

"Can you tell us your name, dear?" the nurse asked.

The girl's eyes searched the nurse's face, then went out of focus, looking out into the distance. Her mouth opened and closed a few times in disbelief. She put a bony, pale hand to her forehead, "I… don't know it…"

* * *

A/N: Hello all! Decided to give writing Hellboy fanfiction another go. Do enjoy. 


	2. Sanctuary

Animal Instincts

Psycho Llama

Disclaimer: Mike Mignola owns all but mousy. Yes, that **does** mean Mike Mignola owns the world. Flee; flee for your lives!

* * *

'_I'll be safe here, he'll never find me…_'

The erratic thoughts of someone sneaking about in the library awoke Abe from his light afternoon doze. He blinked a few times in confusion, wondering if he had only imagined the thought… or that someone he didn't recognise was in the library. He scanned the library again with his mind, and was met by an onslaught of thoughts.

'_I've got to hide, I've got to hide, he'll kill me…_' '_The red demon lives in this place, surely he won't try coming here. No, I'm safe. I have to be_.' '_I'm so tired of running…_'

Abe tensed. 'Red demon'? If she was in the BPRD and didn't know who Hellboy was, she obviously had not been invited in. Well, that and the thoughts about hiding made it a complete give-away. He searched the person's mind, trying to see what they were running from.

'_Dark… evil… killer…_' her thoughts were too jumbled to get a clear picture from. Abe glided silently through the cool water of his tank; right up to the heavy wall of glass that displayed the library before him. The Icthyo looked around the room; no one was in it.

'_Ah! What is that?_'

Abe looked around the room frantically. They could see him, but why couldn't he see them? Were they invisible? He frowned, "Hello? Who's there?"

'_The one in the tank is looking for me… I can't be seen, I must hide…_'

Abe scowled; there wasn't one place in the library big enough to hide a human that he couldn't see from his vantage point…

"Hey, Blue? How ya doin'?" Hellboy's deep baritone floated into the library; shortly followed by the demon himself. Abe started to reply, but got sidetracked by the intruder's thoughts.

'_Blue? Is that his name? How does 'Blue' know I am here? Am I safe? There is no where else I can go… he'll find me… he'll kill me…_'

"Earth to Blue, you in there?" Hellboy asked, standing right up to the glass and tapping on it

Abe shook himself out of his revere; jumping and gliding backwards when he saw how close Hellboy was to the glass. "Someone is in here," Abe's serious voice spoke through the speaker mounted on the wall.

"Really? Where?" Hellboy spun around, startled.

"I can't find them, but they're very frightened. I think they came here seeking asylum," Abe explained, hoping his knowledge of the person would encourage the hidden person to reveal themselves.

'_No… not possible… how did he know… they're going to catch me. They'll throw me out. He'll get me!_'

"We wouldn't let that happen," Abe replied consolingly, looking around the room in search of the source of the thoughts.

"Huh?" Hellboy looked around in vague confusion. His eyes caught on something on a bookshelf beside Abe's tank. He frowned, "Damn bugs…" Abe could see in Hellboy's mind the image of a tiny black spider scurrying across the bookshelf. Hellboy lifted his giant stone hand, ready to smite the little insect. Abe sensed the person's thoughts becoming even more panicked, as if they were about to get squashed by…

Hellboy brought his hand down on the spider. Abe started, "No!" he yelled, air bubbles rushing out of his mouth in an underwater scream.

Hellboy stayed his stone hand, "Relax, Blue. It's not like I would have damaged the wood or anything… and he's getting away," Hellboy grumbled, watching the black spider scurry along the spines of some ancient novels predatorily.

"First of all, the spider is a 'she'," Abe placed both hands on the surface of the glass, "Second of all, that 'she' is not actually a spider."

"She's a shape-shifter?" Hellboy puzzled, looking more closely at the frantic arachnid, "Doesn't look like one."

In a split second, the black spider morphed into a tiny grey mouse, which scurried away as fast and far as it could from Hellboy. Bute he was quick to react, catching the mouse by the tail and holding it up. The mouse transformed into a skink, which disengaged its tail and fell onto the floor, slipping under the bookcase where no one could catch it.

"Damn!" Hellboy cussed, dropping the dead tail.

'Shape-shifters are not easily caught, if ever. I think we will have to lure her out," Abe observed with some interest.

"Hey, you're the psychic, you make her come out," Hellboy retorted.

'_Psychic? Psychic? Oh no, they're going to find me…_'

Hellboy signalled for Abe to get out of the tank and watched the merman swim up out of sight before getting down on his knees and peering under the bookcase. His eyes adjusted to the dark light only to see the coiled black snake about to strike. Hellboy yanked his head out of the way just before the creature struck. Hellboy tried to grab the snake's head, but missed.

"Any luck yet?" Abe called, plodding into the room; still dripping slightly. He had obviously got out of his tank in a hurry, still fiddling with his dry-suit and breathing apparatus.

"Snake tried to bite me," Hellboy growled.

"Hmm…" Abe got down on the floor beside Hellboy and looked under the bookcase himself, "Melissa?"

'_The psychic! He knows my name! No…_' the mind of the shape-shifter hissed in frustration and fear.

"That her name? Nice. What else have you got on her?"

"Not very much. Amnesia… woke up in a hospital… no one knew who she was…" Abe replied distantly.

"She wants sanctuary, right? Just tell her to come out and we'll let her stay here," Hellboy suggested.

"She doesn't trust us. The last people that granted her sanctuary betrayed her. I guess they were too afraid of whatever was chasing her," Abe sighed, looking down.

"…What's she running from?"

"Hard to tell, her thoughts are too erratic…" Abe tried to scan the girl's mind again, but was interrupted as she changed from one animal to another, brain patterns changing to that of a mouse's again. The grey mouse scuttled out from under the bookcase on Abe's side, making a break for it.

Abe caught the mouse, gently picking it up in his hands and trying to ignore the massive wave of panicked thoughts of the shape-shifter, magnified through touch. The little grey mouse became a little grey bird and flew out of Abe's webbed hands.

"Oh dear…" Abe murmured.

'_Escape, escape, escape_,' the girl's mind cried, the sparrow fluttering around the library's high ceiling.

"Dammit…" Hellboy cursed.

"What's going on?" Agent Clay called, stumbling into the library. Abe scuttled over to the agent and deftly shut the door behind him, preventing the shape-shifter from getting out.

"Shape-shifter," Clay heard Hellboy growl, his yellow eyes trained on the bird, "Think I got it…"

Hellboy jumped, making a grab for the sparrow. But he missed, landing on the floor with a loud 'thud' and a mini earthquake. Clay and Abe had to take a minute to steady themselves. Hellboy took another leap into the air, just brushing a wing of the bird before landing again.

"Woah!" Clay was almost knocked off his feet by the tremor.

"You are only scaring her more!" Abe warned. He moved away from the door, trying to get closer to the sparrow. Clay resumed guarding the door, watching the sparrow curiously.

The bird was leading Hellboy and Abe deliberately away from the door. Before they had time to react, the sparrow flitted over their heads and towards the library door. The bird dived to the ground, becoming a leopard before Clay's wide eyes. The shape-shifter roared, trying to scare the agent away from the door.

Clay stood unfazed; his hand reaching for his gun… but he didn't pull it out. The leopard paused in her tracks, surprised by the sudden development.

Hellboy's little earthquakes had the whole bureau into a panicked state by now. Professor Broom and a few others were already making their way to the library. Professor Broom opened the library door behind Clay, starting to ask, "What's going on in here?" but was interrupted when a leopard apparently became a fox and darted through Clay' legs and around the professor's own to get out of the library.

Hellboy and Abe, also running towards the door, were crying out indistinguishable pleas for someone, anyone, to stop the shape-shifter. But it was too late, by the sounds of the surprised yells that followed down the corridor and then the, "Damnit, I've lost it in the air vent!" that followed.

"Oh, forgive me, I didn't know the three of you had something there," Broom apologised quietly.

"It does not matter, she will not leave this place…" Abe reassured, his tone distant. His head was pointed towards the ceiling, following the shape-shifter's path through the air-ducts.

Hellboy blinked, "…Why not?"

"She believes this is the only place safe for her," the amphibian sighed.

"I think we had better discuss this in my office," Broom smiled warmly, "I'll go tell the kitchens to make us some hot tea and pancakes…"

* * *

"She came here to seek asylum. For the last three years she has been constantly on the run, and only two and a half years before that woke up in a hospital with complete amnesia. No one knew who she was; the hospital staff affectionately named her 'Melissa'. She can change into any of over a million species of animals. She has no idea how it works, but has an innate sense that she was not born with it," Abe explained, going over the few facts he had gained from her when he had picked her up.

"On the run from what?" Manning asked stonily.

"That's the interesting part; it is one of Rasputin's followers, Dr Karl Ruprecht Kroenen. I am guessing he was trying to either capture her for medical experiments or simply following Rasputin's orders. Melissa is quite sure he is trying to assassinate her."

"Three _years_? That's a long time to chase someone," Clay frowned.

"Which is why I'm starting to think that it was one of Rasputin's orders. She would prove a worthy ally to us, and it wouldn't be surprising if they thought the same about her, or at least her ability to shape-shift. I believe it is something to do with her DNA. I think it has been modified in some way," Abe stated.

"You said she had amnesia… do you think you could bring any of it back?" Hellboy asked, mulling over how the girl remembered nothing of her past. Maybe memories prior to her amnesia could prove why Rasputin's followers were chasing her, or how she became a shape-shifter.

"It's difficult. The amnesia was drug-induced. Someone _meant_ for her to forget everything," Abe replied quietly.

"Drug-induced? Perhaps by the person that made her into a shape-shifter?" Broom theorised.

"Yes, but I do not think it was Dr Kroenen," Abe answered before Broom could even ask. Abe had done some research on the Nazi scientist. Whatever happened to Melissa was in a completely different science from what Kroenen practices.

"Hmm… well we want her to know that the door is open, and she is welcome," Broom smiled thoughtfully, "There is a spare living unit near the medical bay, we'll give her that."

"Professor Broom, are you sure that's a wise idea?" Manning scowled.

"Yes, I am," Broom confirmed loudly, he lowered his tone to a friendlier pitch when he talked to Abe, "Kindly show her where it is next time you see her, Abe. The rest of the bureau will need to be alerted that there is a shape-shifter in here. We don't want her to be accidentally squashed now, do we?" his eyes twinkled at Hellboy's nervous cough.

* * *

'_That's a clever hiding place_.' Melissa almost jumped out of her skin when she heard the psychic's voice inside of her head. '_No, no. Please stay calm, I won't tell anyone where you are._'

Melissa clung on tighter to the wall, her tan-coloured moth wings blending in perfectly with her surroundings, she didn't know if she could trust the fish-man…

'_Have I given you any reason not to trust me?_' the voice echoed in her mind.

'_You and that other one were trying to capture me! Why should I trust you?_' her thought came off louder than she expected, like a mental shout to Abe.

'_Hellboy and I were only trying to help you. Professor Broom also asked me to show you where your room is_,' Melissa almost let go of her grip on the wall as the mental image of how to get from where she was to her room downloaded into her mind.

'_A room? They mean to keep me here. They want to hold me prisoner here. Experiments… scientists… restraints…_' Melissa's mind went wild.

'_No, we just want you to feel welcome here. Please understand that you are safe while you are with us, but we could use your help…_'

'_Help? What good am I to anyone…?_'

'_We don't currently have any agents who could disguise themselves as well or get into places that you could, with your abilities_.'

'_But I can't fight. I've seen what you can do. I watched you and the red monkey fight. I followed you here… I can't help you. All I can do is run and hide. Hide, I can't even do that. He always finds me; it isn't fair. I've run so far…_'

Abe decided to interrupt before her thoughts turned into an erratic buzz, '_If you help us, we will do whatever we can to make sure you are safe_.' Abe worded his promise carefully, knowing that the 'we' could only certainly apply to him and Hellboy. Hellboy would be willing to defend a fellow… special person. '_And the red monkey's name is Hellboy_.'

'_Safe? Safe? If you can promise me safety, I will do whatever you ask of me_,' Melissa pleaded.

The heavy banging on the tank's glass window to the library severed Abe's psychic link with Melissa. Snapping out of his trance, the ichthyoid did a little flip in the water and swam to the glass panel. He looked peeved, "What is it?"

"Jeez, Blue, I've been calling ya for the past five minutes! Where were you?" Hellboy scowled, 'where' meaning mentally rather than physically.

Abe blinked, "…I was communicating with Melissa."

"Who?"

"The shape-shifter."

"Oh, _her_," Hellboy growled.

Ignoring him, Abe continued, "She's agreed to help us, if we protect her."

"Really? Good. Found out anything new about her?"

"Mmhmm. She _is_ a shape-shifter, but she can only shift into certain shapes. Animals. And it's definitely something in her DNA. Certain codes have been somehow planted in her system, allowing her to replace parts of her DNA to change into an animal instantaneously. Someone did this to her," Abe murmured darkly.

"You two have a lot in common then. D'ya know which hospital she woke up in?" Hellboy asked, mouth full with the cigar he was smoking. Abe read his comrade's thoughts.

"It wasn't St Trinian's. It was some small hospital in Germany; she finds it difficult to remember the name. She wandered half of Germany trying to find out who she was. Nothing."

"Jeez…" Hellboy murmured, stubbing out his cigar, "When did she wake up?"

"Five and a half years ago, approximately. It took a while for years and dates to become important to her, so it is difficult to predict exactly when," Abe sighed, floating about in his tank.

"Any clues about why Kroenen is after her?"

"Just one," the fish-man nodded, "But I find it more confusing than helpful."

"Let's hear it, then," Hellboy shifted, readying himself for a long explanation.

"I'm afraid you will have to experience this one instead," Abe stuck his webbed hand to the glass wall separating them, "It's quite long."

Hellboy gave the webbed hand an unsettled look, "Alright then," he grunted and pressed his left hand to the opposite side of the glass, opening his mind to Abe's projection of Melissa's memory.

* * *

Hellboy's eyes were given the view of a little German village; the local speech conveniently translated into English by Abe's extensive linguist skills. Hellboy could hear Abe telling him facts on where he was and what was going on in the back of his mind.

"It is about eight twenty five at night in the village, Melissa had spent the whole day looking for clues on a photograph she had found with herself in, currently folded up neatly in the left-hand pocket of that cardigan she is wearing. That's her there by the bakery…" Abe's voice cut out, letting the scene unfold in Hellboy's mind.

A tall, gangly European girl with a head of thick, dark wavy hair pushed open the bakery door and exited. The little bell on the bakery door jangled merrily as it shut behind her. Hellboy noticed a corner of folded paper protruding from the left-hand pocket of the brown, woolly cardigan she was wearing.

'_Bingo_,' Hellboy's mind confirmed to himself.

The girl clutched a small paper bag to her chest. Obviously dinner, but it didn't look like much…

"Poverty, she received very little money after being found, but she still went on in the search for her identity," Abe's voice answered.

The tatty cardigan and second-hand ankle-length black wouldn't have been enough to evade the obvious cold that late at night. And she was beginning to shiver.

Breath shaking with the cold, Melissa strode directly past Hellboy's viewpoint and further down the street. Hellboy's viewpoint moved as Melissa moved away. Hellboy could only hold on and enjoy the ride.

There was a time-skip, and Melissa was found resting against the brick wall of a small shop, one of the few with the lights still on. Her eyes fluttered open and rhythmic ticking could be heard faintly in the air. The night sky was dark, lit only by the moon and the few stars not shrouded in cloud. Melissa moved closer to the sound of the ticking, further down the street.

Hellboy tensed, '_Kroenen?_'

She was sure it was coming from the alleyway ahead. She poked her head around the corner; Hellboy held his breath in suspense. No one there. Melissa frowned and walked to the shop on the other side of the alleyway, light flooding the street outside. It was a clock shop.

Hellboy groaned; Abe's chuckling filling his head, "I thought I should have left that bit in there. I was so worried when she stuck her head into the alley… I was sure Kroenen was about to jump out and grab her."

'_Thanks, Blue_,' Hellboy thought sarcastically.

Melissa entered the clock shop, looking at the clocks hung on the wall distantly. Hellboy overheard her asking the man behind the counter if he had any spare rooms she could use for the night, even though she didn't have any money. The man quite rudely shooed her out, thinking she was just another street rat.

Hellboy felt a twinge of sympathy for the girl. Underclothed, underfed and no place warm to go home to. '_Did she ever find anything out about the photo?_'

"No, and yet she was so close…" Abe's voice sighed.

Melissa continued down the empty street, unperturbed. '_I can keep the cold off if I just keep walking…_'

Hellboy now heard Melissa's voice in his head, her thoughts, most likely.

Hellboy's vision followed Melissa down the road. The next three blocks passing in complete silence. Then the soft ticking sound returned. '_Whole town's just full of clocks…_' Melissa thought dejectedly, thinking back to the storekeeper in the clock shop.

'_Here we go…_' Hellboy's mind growled.

"It can't be…" Melissa's disbelieving whisper broke the heavy silence. She sprinted over to the old village library; the windows cracked and dirty. On one of the windows, taped against it from the other side of the glass, was an array of old photos. She hastily pulled her photo from her pocket and pressed it to the glass beside its twin. She squealed in happiness at the exact match.

'_Hey, she found her picture,_' Hellboy inwardly grinned.

"Oh wow…" Melissa laughed in joyous surprise, '_I can find out who I am… what happened to me… all my questions will finally be answered!_'

The girl was so rapt by her discovery that she didn't even care about passers-by that noticed her ecstatic reaction. She had noticed that her perhaps over-the-top shout had turned at least one head. But she didn't care; it was only one person anyway.

'_Only one person?_' Hellboy was beginning to get the creeps, wishing hard that he were in control of where the vision. He wanted, no, _needed_ to see who that one person was…

"Three guesses?" Abe's voice offered.

'_I'll take one_,' Hellboy's mind growled.

Melissa accidentally dropped her copy of the photo on the ground as she moved from the window to the library's main doors. Finding them locked, Melissa banged loudly on the historical building's door, "Hello, is there anyone in there? Hello?"

Hellboy noticed the passer-by had stopped in their tracks, watching Melissa flit about the door and windows to see if there was a way inside.

Melissa noticed the dark figure in the reflection of the glass, '_Damn, I can't change into an animal in public. But I must get into that library! Is it worth the risk?_' Then she noticed the dark figure making its way towards her, '_Oh great. Don't panic, the worst it could be is a police officer wondering what I am doing at this hour of the night…Heh._'

Hellboy felt sickened at the impending doom Melissa was so unaware of. He saw the figure pick up something off the ground, Melissa's photograph, and then pocket it.

'_Hey, maybe he knows what time the library opens…_'

Hellboy could hear the crunching footsteps of what was obviously Kroenen coming up behind Melissa.

Melissa; too excited about finding the match to her picture to care about how suspicious the person approaching her was, decided upon asking them about the library. She turned around to face the person, already half way through her sentence, "Excuse me, do you know…"

Horror spread across Melissa's pale features, her words dying on her lips. Every muscle in her body seized up in fear, her eyes widening at the frightening presence before her.

Hellboy was blown away by the onslaught of animal instincts that flooded Melissa's mind, escape strategies and adrenalin boiling through her brain. It wasn't so much the inhuman mask, the Nazi symbols or the tips of swords protruding from the person's sleeves that scared her; but what her animal senses were telling her. She could smell blood. Blood even from decades ago, blood long washed away and gone, but the mark of blood was still there. It scared her to imagine how much blood the person before her had spilled, her animal senses reeling.

'_RUN, RUN, RUN!_' Melissa obeyed her instincts and fled. With lightning-quick reflexes, the figure's leather encased hand grabbed her arm. '_Hunter… predator… killer…_' Melissa shrieked in fear and surprise. An inhuman, wraith-like scream sounding from her half-inhuman vocal cords.

She felt the hand release her arm in surprise as the flesh turned to feathers and arm turned to wing. Melissa launched herself into the air, letting her wings propel her skywards.

Hellboy watched the falcon fly away in awe. Kroenen snapped out of his own surprised trance and took off; making his way swiftly to the main road that Melissa was headed for. Hellboy cursed in his mind, watching the vision follow Melissa.

An alley cat poked her head around the corner of the alleyway, scanning the main road for any signs of activity. Melissa's feline eyes spotted the dark outline of the person's trench coat standing next to a tree.

'_What is that?_' Hellboy puzzled.

"A decoy," Abe's mind muttered into his own.

'_Crap_.'

Melissa noticed this too; her night-vision eyes registering that the outline was merely the trench coat and hat hanging from the tree branch. She morphed back into her human self, fear gripping her chest tightly, making it hard to breathe. Melissa froze at the sound of soft ticking that began to fill the night air. She checked the roads again, not a person in sight.

Then she looked up… two soulless dark lenses stared back down at her.

Hellboy was given the view of the chase sped up. Melissa ran, morphing into a cheetah. She sped away as fast as her limbs would carry her. Kroenen pursued her from the rooftops, speeding across them with the superhuman balance and agility his surgical 'modifications' granted him. But the cheetah was faster.

Hellboy was brought with a jolt back to the real world, staring up at Abe in confusion and horror, "What happened? Why'd you stop?" he demanded loudly.

Abe's face remained emotionless, "She ran for three days solid, as a cheetah. The longest time she had ever spent as one animal alone. She took refuge in the neighbouring village, but Kroenen caught up with her six hours later. Then she had to run again."

"Damn… how long did that last?" Hellboy murmured, unsticking his hand from the glass wall of Abe's tank.

"Almost two months of running and hiding. Then Kroenen disappeared, I am guessing he was called back to his duties to Rasputin. Melissa kept running, in various animals all the time so no one became suspicious of her. It was only half a year later that Kroenen found her again. Ever since then, she has constantly been on the run, only managing rest in Kroenen's infrequent absences."

"That's harsh, no wonder she's so panicky…"

"He grabbed her photo, why did he do that?" Abe hissed to himself, somersaulting in the water to alleviate his stress.

"Maybe he doesn't like people littering?" Hellboy suggested. Receiving a blank look from Abe, he shrugged his shoulders "Just a thought…"

"The most disturbing memory of the chase was when Melissa hid in an old Church in England. Kroenen slaughtered every person that went past the church to try and make her come out. Melissa was terrified, her humanity to stop him from killing all those people and her animalistic need for survival fought hard against each other. Her human side eventually won, but only just," Abe told Hellboy in a quiet voice, "And I have no idea _why_."

"Hey, don't worry. We're here to protect her now," Hellboy grinned, "And we could send a team up to that village she was at to find out who she was, you know."

"Hmm, good idea. And while you're out there, would you mind finding out if there are any more rotten eggs available? All that projecting has left me rather famished," Abe smiled widely, showing his two rows or needle-sharp teeth.

"Yeah, sure," Hellboy nodded vaguely, making his way towards the library door.

* * *

Melissa buzzed happily around one of the lights on the ceiling, masking her appearance by giving into the animal instinct that constantly plagued her mind. Sometimes she worried that her animal psyche would one day get the better of her, and she would go mad… or wild. At least that psyche allowed her to blend in more, acting like an animal.

She didn't use the housefly often; getting used to the insect's eyes was a nightmare. Thousands of little pictures, all at different angles, showed the world before her. It was enough to give any one a headache.

Abe was working on the negotiations for her joining the BPRD, mainly trying to get Manning to consent to the agreement. Melissa knew not to trust anybody until the word was final, she spent the day exploring the vast expanse of the bureau. She found herself in the corridor leading to Hellboy's room. She felt safe there, as if the red monkey was some strange parody of a guardian angel.

She heard footsteps and turned her attention to the approaching gentlemen.

"…Just be careful, okay? We've got a rogue shape-shifter in the building." Melissa saw the other agent give her a shifty look. Melissa changed into a mouse in midair, falling to the ground and bouncing a little before taking off in the opposite direction from the two agents, disappearing around the corner.

Clay smiled at the other agent's bewildered look, "Yeah, don't worry, she usually hangs out around this place."

Melissa placed her tiny paws on the wall and leapt up, gripping the wall with her lime-green lizard paws in mid-change. The green lizard wasn't much for camouflage, but it was perfect for scaling walls fast. She paused at the top of the doorframe, readying herself for a complex shift from one animal to another.

Melissa made the change; she felt the organs beneath her skin change and grow, the blood in her veins warming, her senses transforming in quality and priority. A barn owl, she flew into the spacious library with all the clumsiness of a reptile been given wings. Landing on one of the music stands before the tank, Melissa craned her neck to see which book Abe was currently reading.

"Oh, hello again," Melissa heard the Ichthyoid's voice crackle over the speaker, "Would you mind turning the pages? They've just gotten to the interesting part."

The barn owl became a spider monkey, the fingered hands more adept for turning the pages of a book. Melissa turned her furry face up to the glass tank, "How are the negotiations?" she asked calmly, curling her black tail around the bookstand.

"You can talk as an animal? That's clever," Abe grinned with interest, "The negotiations are fine, Mr Manning is coming in to meet you later on. I'm sure everything will go smoothly."

Melissa wasn't fooled by his lie, "I may not be able to read other people's mind, but I can tell when they are lying. You are worried about Manning meeting me. Why?" the girl kept a close eye on Abe's body language.

"He is not as understanding as Professor Broom. He has… issues with people as different as us. And he hates spiders."

Melissa grinned at the implication, shifting back into the barn owl. Abe cocked his head to the side, "I could try to bring back some of your memories, if you would let me."

The girl's eyes went wide; "Really?" the shock soon left, leaving only her reluctance to trust the psychic. In all her experience on the run from death, trust was a futile hope. Too many people had sold her out… she didn't blame them.

'_I assure you again, we won't betray you in any way. It is our business to stop these kinds of people. Your peruser especially_,' Abe's mind consoled her silently.

Melissa jumped on her perch, Abe's presence in her consciousness startling her. "Oh, sorry, I forget my place sometimes. I didn't mean to startle you," Abe apologised.

Melissa waved the apology off, "I'm just skittish. Thank you for the hospitality, you have no idea what it means to me," the monkey stated quietly, her head bowed.

Abe grimaced, sensing Melissa's fear of bringing Kroenen down on the BPRD. He wanted to tell her that she would be fine and that no one was in danger, but that would betray the fact that he was reading her thoughts again. Most people became uncomfortable around Abe if they became aware he was reading them.

"How long would it take for me to get my memory back?"

"Quite a while. It would be a slow process, a little more each day, but worth the time spent."

"Would it be tiring for you?"

"Not really," Abe smiled, almost to the point of showing off. The process would take a lot of time and energy; but nothing he couldn't handle, of course.

'_Do I really want to remember what happened? What if it was bad… what if it hurt…? Something happened to me to make me like this. Something dark…_' Melissa thought to herself.

Abe just smiled encouragingly, biting his tongue to prevent himself from saying how much better it would be to know than not to. If he had the choice to find out his own past he would gladly embrace it.

"Dr Manning is heading this way," Abe sighed.

Melissa turned her head towards the door. She tensed, fighting the urge to run and hide at the approach of a potential predator. She moved from the bookstand to one of the plush armchairs. Curling her furry black tail around herself, she prepared for meeting the fabled Dr Manning; the one Hellboy was always cursing and yelling about.

"…Is that it?" Manning asked, shoving open the library door and staring down his nose at the little spider monkey.

"_Her_, yes," Broom corrected. The aged man smiled at the shape-shifter, "Thank you for agreeing to participate with the interview."

"It's okay," Melissa mumbled shyly, earning a few more surprised looks.

"Hey, she can talk!" Hellboy grinned as he followed the two men into the room.

'_May I_?' Abe's voice asked in Melissa's head, implying sharing the facts about the extent of her shape-shifting abilities to the other three. With the consent, Abe cleared his throat lightly; "She has the potential to combine different animal DNA patterns; as she has already managed to incorporate human vocal chords into any animal she chooses and has harnessed the sharpest and clearest animal senses into her human form."

"You mean, she could become a fish-girl if she wanted?" Hellboy grinned.

"Or a large red monkey," Abe counteracted smoothly.

"Wow," Melissa murmured, looking at her monkey paws in disbelief of the potential they held.

"So what use can she be to the bureau?" Manning drawled.

"Spy? Lookout? Translator for talking to the animals?" Hellboy suggested eagerly.

"Like Dr Dolittle? Well come on then, show us your trick," Manning grumbled at the shape-shifter.

A lioness, rabbit, bear, tiger, elephant, mouse… Melissa cycled through some of her favourite animals, all the while maintaining smooth movements off the armchair and towards Broom and Manning. She stopped before the pair, as a giraffe, before letting her form return to human.

In contrast to the thin, impoverished girl Hellboy had seen through the memory Abe showed him, Melissa now looked closer to a living skeleton. Dark circles around her weary eyes and bony frame showed just how malnourished she had become. Her clothes looked worn and tattered, definitely second hand from some charity organisation. The clothes had been torn in several places, scabs and scratches decorating what little skin was shown. There were a few fading cuts on her pale face, her hair matted and dirty.

"Sorry about the… uh, mess," Melissa mumbled, indicating to her present state.

"Oh, not at all. Much worse has managed to drag itself into the bureau, we'll have you cleaned up in no time," Broom smiled paternally.

"…How are you still wearing clothes?" Hellboy frowned.

Melissa blushed, "I guess it's because my human form is my original, anything else is just a disguise over top of this," she gestured at herself, "which is why anything that's on me gets disguised too."

"You said that she was on the run from a dangerous murderer connected with the paranormal," Manning stated, turning to Broom, "What if she brings that dangerous murderer down on us? I don't want my men put in danger in any way."

Melissa looked suddenly very small when the greatest fear she had of becoming part of the BPRD was brought up.

"Nah, we can take him," Hellboy smirked.

"I assure you, Dr Manning, that I have absolute confidence in Hellboy's ability to protect your agents from any such threatening force," Broom added proudly, he turned to Melissa, "Now, let's get you some food, hmm?"

The shape-shifter thanked him graciously, following the professor out of the library; Manning following after a regarding the two other 'freaks' in the room.

"So, how is she?"

"Worried that she will bring Dr Kroenen down upon us and that many will be killed. She has seen it happen more than once," Abe replied, floating on his back near the bottom of his tank.

"Damn… At least she's getting along with Pops. What was her reaction to Manning?" Hellboy asked, striding over to his friend's tank.

"That he would be the first to sell her out in a crisis. She has nightmares… being betrayed…"

Hellboy grunted, "A few months here will put her right. She looks so… skinny."

"Malnourished, yes. She won't be joining us on the field for some time, either. She needs food, rest and a lot of therapy."

Hellboy grinned broadly, "Oh, is _that_ what you call it?"

Abe felt his gills go a darker shade of blue, "Don't even _think_ that."

Professor Broom walked Melissa down the lengthy hallways of the BPRD, heading for the kitchens. He smiled warmly; "So, what do you eat then, miss… may I call you Melissa?"

Melissa nodded shyly, "Sure. Um, anything," she shrugged. Professor Broom raised his eyebrows, Melissa sighed, "No, I'm not a vegetarian. The few I have entrusted this secret with have thought me to be so…" the girl laughed, "My animalistic side won the battle for food, so many of my forms are carnivorous… all my human side can do is try and stop the urge to eat it _raw_."

"Sounds like you have quite a battle going on up there."

"I can handle it."

The professor nodded. It amused him greatly how easily the girl could take up the same defensive attitude he had seen so frequently in Hellboy. "I trust Abe has shown you where your room is?"

"Yes. Thank you very much for this, I promise I'll do all I can towards the Bureau—"

"Oh, don't worry, you will always be welcome here," Broom chuckled softly.

"Thank you," Melissa repeated with heart-felt appreciation. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt such trust, not since she had been first betrayed, and they were doing so much for her and expected so little in return… '_Damn, I'm getting emotional…_'

"And also, we don't mind if you prefer your meat raw. Diversity in one's choice of food is encouraged at the Bureau. Why, Abe's favourite food is rotten eggs, for example."

"They've got a nice tang, but that's just my reptiles talking," Melissa smiled lopsidedly.

"Do you have any favourite foods?" Broom prompted.

"Beggars can't be choosers."

"Then I guess you shall have to try a bit of everything," the professor grinned.

* * *

A/N: Yay! Up on the page for five minutes and already I get a review! D Domo arigatou, FlyingFish15! The previous chapter was a prologue for quite some time ago, as this chapter says. Enjoy reading! 


	3. Rememberance

Animal Instincts

Psycho Llama

Disclaimer: Mike Mignola owns all but mousy. Yes, that **does** mean Mike Mignola owns the world. Flee; flee for your lives!

* * *

There, at the end of the branch sat the bird's nest. The eggs were supposed to hatch today. Over the rim of the twiggy nest, she could see one of the eggs start to tremble, the bird inside ready to emerge. If only she could get a little closer, see a little more… the height did not daunt her. She tried to inch closer to the nest, praying that the branch beneath her would hold.

She was almost there. The bird broke through the shell, cheeping shrilly. The girl smiled, steadying herself with one hand on an adjacent branch. The bird reminded her of herself, emerging into a new world, beginning a new life… in a new country, even.

She felt the branch give under her weight, she leaned to the other side to avoid falling with it. Her arm swung wildly in the air, trying to find something to anchor itself, but failed. She slipped off the trunk, falling into the sky.

She didn't scream, she didn't move. All she could do was watch the branches rush away from her, her breath whisked away with them, '_Will it hurt a lot, before I die_?' she wondered briefly.

Then she felt someone catch her, arms wrap around her waist in an attempt to slow her decent. Well, they tried to catch her. She felt the two of them thrown backwards from the force of the fall.

'_I'm alive_?' the young girl blinked in amazement, staring off into the distance. The person's arms were still wrapped around her… were they okay? Groaning, she sat up. There was a cut on her forehead, she noticed, touching the bleeding wound lightly with her fingertips.

The person beside her grumbled wearily and sat up, cradling their head in their hands. The girl blinked, staring at the person who had saved her life. He was exactly her age, if not a little older. The boy stared back at her; she didn't know what to say.

"Thank you," she said quietly.

"What were you doing up there?" the boy frowned, "In a dress, climbing trees?"

"I wanted to see the birds hatch," the girl replied softly, wrapping her arms defensively around her knees. Her dress had been torn in several different places due to the fall, her father would be furious.

"You aren't from around here, are you?"

The girl looked back to the boy, "No, we arrived on Tuesday. How did you know?"

"There is only one school in this village, I did not recognise you."

"We moved here from England. My father grew up here… it was his idea to move," she sighed, looking at the ground.

"You should be at home, won't your mother be worried that you're out so late?" the boy cocked his head to the side.

"She died when I was four."

"I'm sorry…"

"Don't be. She died in peace," the girl smiled distantly, remembering what her father told her, "What about yours?"

"Both of my parents died the year before last," the blonde boy replied sadly.

"Oh…" the girl looked down at the ground.

"Where do you live?" the voice sounded oddly distant. The girl looked over to where the boy was sitting, but the vision faded away, darkness invading her dream and pulling her into the conscious world.

Melissa opened her eyes, the sight of the BPRD room she slept in greeting her with cold familiarity. The shape-shifter searched her mind for that presence she felt when Abe was with her, but found nothing. She supposed him to be asleep, as she had just been.

She rolled over, hugging the sheets tighter to herself. Was what she had just seen one of the memories Abe had unlocked in her mind? Melissa drew in a shaky breath. The answers the dream had given her had only brought on more questions. The boy in her dream seemed important to her dormant past. Were they once friends? If she found him could he tell her who she was?

'_Thank you…_' she whispered in her head, thinking of the sleeping psychic that had given her back a memory; a clue to who the heck she really was. All she wanted to know in the world.

* * *

A/N: Thank you very much to Nightcaster and epalladino for your reviews, you guys are so nice:) 


	4. Companions

Animal Instincts

Psycho Llama

Disclaimer: Mike Mignola owns all but mousy. Yes, that **does** mean Mike Mignola owns the world. Flee; flee for your lives!

* * *

The girl in the video interview shifted slightly on the stool, trying to get comfortable. Someone from behind the camera asked her if she's ready, the interview began. 

"Ready? Yeah… but the little red light is already on," Melissa stated blankly, pointing at the camera. She looked a lot healthier than when she first arrived at the bureau. The dark circles of sleepless nights under her eyes were beginning to fade, her cheeks looking a little less pinched from her lack of nutrition. Her hair had been seen to and now shone in its full, chestnutty glory. And wearing some nice clothes for once, she looked frighteningly normal.

"Don't worry, we can edit that out. Now, could you please state your name and personal information," the disembodied voice asks calmly.

"Okay," Melissa grinned at the camera, "My name is Melissa and it has been for the past five years since I woke up with amnesia in some hospital in the middle of Europe. Um… I don't have that much personal info because I have no memory and no clue as to who I was before… well I refer to that as my '_previous_ _life_' because the doctors that found me claimed I had no pulse." Melissa chuckled, "They shocked me back to life with one of those electric thingies…"

The interviewer then asked her why she was joining the BPRD and about her 'abilities'. Melissa snapped back to reality, apparently pulled back into the memory of waking up with no idea where or even who she was.

"Oh yeah. Well, I'm a shape-shifter, sort of. I can shift into almost any type of animal, but only certain forms. Um, I don't know how to explain this… It's like templates. I mean, I can turn into a tabby cat; but only a specific tabby cat, which I can't change the appearance of." Melissa looked flustered, her hands waving about in gestures to try and help her speech as she went, "It's some long and boring thing to do with DNA. Don't ask. But the most disturbing thing is that I _know_ I wasn't a shape-shifter in the '_before_'; in my '_previous_ _life_'."

"I joined the BPRD mainly for sanctuary from… the outside world. Not so much '_fitting_ _in_' but the fact that I was being _hunted_," the girl shuffled uncomfortably on her stool.

"Can you define what you mean by 'hunted'?" the interviewer requested, knowing the full story but needing it on the camera.

"Hunted, pursued, stalked… call it what you like. There's this evil assassin after me. I don't know why. I came to the BPRD for protection and they were nice enough to offer me a job here, helping out with missions and stuff," Melissa's eyes glimmered with happiness, "It's been really great so far. I've made a lot of really nice friends too…"

The video interview clip came to an end. Abe tapped the mouse over the play button and watched the video again. He used computers very rarely, as he had to be careful about water around them, but he decided to face them for the task of writing up a report on the shape-shifter Melissa. The report was mainly statistics of how far she had run over the years of trying to escape from Kroenen.

Manning had insisted on a list of all the forms she could take and a photograph of every one so they could identify her until Abe and Broom pointed out how many years of constant work that would take and how expensive it would be.

"How's the report coming, Abe?" Broom's aged voice drifted into the room.

"Slowly, professor, slowly," Abe replied, searching for where the D key was located.

"Perhaps we should get a waterproof keyboard in that case… I wonder how much one would cost," sighed Broom, quite aware of how their funding was being scrutinised.

"No need, I am almost finished," the ichthyoid announced distantly. He turned his large eyes on the professor, "How is Melissa?" Abe knew better than to invade Broom's mind after the polite request not to.

"Good, she's with Hellboy presently, talking with his cats again. She's made quite a recovery over the past few weeks. Have you made any progress with her memories of '_the_ _before_'?"

"Some progress. Flashes… images from her past. I managed to find a short memory of her father, but nothing of her mother. Her father was a scientist, that is all I have managed to gather," Abe reflected quietly, thinking of the long, meditative sessions spent trying to free the locked memories in Melissa's mind; her ecstatic glee as she remembered an image of her father's face…

"_I managed to find some memories of your father… but none of your mother I'm afraid."_

"_I know. She died when I was young."_

_Abe gave the girl a startled look, searching her mind for the evidence of that fact, but found nothing. Melissa met his searching eyes; "It's not up there," she stated quietly, "I can feel it instinctively, here," she touched where her heart was a smirk tugging at her lips, "Not everything is in the mind. I just know… my father raised me alone…"_

"At least she is making progress," Broom smiled, interrupting Abe's thoughts, "I am sure she is very grateful for your help."

"I do what I can," Abe inclined his head politely.

Broom nodded, "Make sure you re-hydrate when you're finished with the report, Abe."

"I will, professor."

* * *

"Wow, you've been to Russia? What was that like?" Melissa asked in fascination, her tail twitching from side to side. 

"Good. Cold," Hellboy muttered around the cigar in his mouth. Melissa's liquid amber eyes went back to the TV screens, each showing an array of slightly interesting cartoons. Her cat form, as she had stated in the interview, was a tabby cat; a black and grey tabby cat that shared Melissa's eye colour with her human form.

"I'm not bugging you at all, am I?"

Hellboy blinked, "Not unless you've got a little spy camera in your fur. Nah, I don't get company often. It's good to have someone to talk to. Hey, maybe Pops could even adopt you too," Hellboy laughed.

"Is that possible? I mean, I don't even know who I am… what if my old father is still alive?" Melissa asked hollowly, something in her gut telling her that he wasn't.

"Pops adopted me," Hellboy shrugged, "Can't be that hard."

Melissa shrugged her furry shoulders and went about licking a paw and cleaning her face.

"So why do you think Kroenen's after you?"

Melissa gave Hellboy a sharp glare, but shrugged it off, "I don't know."

"Yeah, but you gotta have _some_ idea," Hellboy pressed.

"Maybe it's a pride thing. Like some obsession about '_the one that got away'_…" Melissa emitted a scared, whining noise, "As of late I haven't been making it away with that much of a margin. If I had not seen the two of you and followed you here… I could be dead."

"Insane bastard… yeah, that could be it. Or he could want you for some sciencey thing."

"Don't say that."

"Why not?"

"That's the fate I fear the most…" Melissa's fur stood on end, "The thought of being some _specimen_ to be cut up and observed under a microscope…"

"Oh, sorry…" Hellboy went silent, a little embarrassed on how blunt he had been. It didn't last for long, "So what's with your past life? Abe said that you got an image of your father back. Remember anything about him?"

"Only what Abe managed to find. He was a scientist, that's all I can remember." Another long silence followed that, the two beings watching the cartoons on the televisions without much attention to the show.

"So what's your favourite animal?" Hellboy asked, clearly bored.

"The mouse," Melissa smiled distantly, "No, not because I'm a cat right now. My mouse form has saved me on more occasions than any other; the mouse is small and silent, it goes unnoticed… My favourite mouse is my golden-brown fieldmouse. Cute little thing, I'd show you but the other cats might get jealous," the shape-shifter chuckled.

"Mouse, eh? Makes a good nickname," Hellboy smirked, " 'Mousy'."

"And then there's the flamingo; lovely thing, but very few opportunities to be a flamingo. The best time I had was in Berlin where I hid in the city zoo as a flamingo for over a week…"

"What happened?"

"Breeding program. Had to get the hell out of there," Melissa muttered, blushing furiously. Hellboy roared with laughter, startling some of the cats around him.

Melissa groaned, "And I had to pick the _worst_ possible time to make my escape… I tried to get out at night, when nobody was watching. I decided to make my escape as a flamingo instead of a human, _big_ mistake. I trotted down the road at a reasonable pace, bright pink and covered in feathers, straight into this strange lady. She looked mean. _Evil-_mean_…_"

"_Stupid little bird, what are you doing out of your cage?" Ilsa scowled in annoyance._

_Melissa was in no mood to pretend, "Oh I'm just out for a little midnight stroll. Would you mind kindly getting out of my way?" Melissa bit out, glaring with all her pink, feathery might at the blonde._

_Ilsa stared in shock at the talking flamingo. She stepped back slightly and called to someone in the adjacent alleyway, "Kroenen, I think you should see this…"_

"And at this point I really didn't know the assassin's name, so I wasn't all that worried," Melissa told Hellboy, briefly interrupting her story.

_Melissa scowled and kept walking. Kroenen appeared out of the shadows, looking with confusion from Ilsa to the flamingo. Melissa froze in her tracks. Ilsa was the one to give her away, she waved at the shape-shifter vaguely, "Talking flamingo."_

_Melissa gulped; she could practically imagine the gears turning in the assassin's head and realisation hit, even though the assassin wore a mask. In a fit of panic and denial, the girl whimpered quietly, "…No I'm not." _

_Twin blades shot out of Kroenen's sleeves. Ilsa looked confused. Melissa fled, abandoning the graceful strides of the flamingo to embrace the wobbling sprint of the gangly bird. Back to her little pen, back with the other flamingoes, back in time to blend in before her pursuer caught up with her._

"I used the flamingo's instincts to blend in with the others. He followed…" Melissa stared unseeing at the wall ahead, Hellboy hanging on her every word. "I'm not sure if he could tell me apart from the others. He looked confused… then he pointed a gun at me," Melissa shuddered, "You see, flamingoes don't know what a gun is. He didn't appear threatening enough for a flamingo to move or respond in any way. If I had, he would have known that I was not a flamingo…"

"What happened?" asked Hellboy, riveted.

"I was scared… I briefly wondered how it would be to die…" Melissa frowned, "That feeling felt familiar, like I had accepted death before, which is worrying."

"Why didn't he shoot? I mean, no offence—"

"Another mystery. Maybe he wanted me to die a slow and painful death for being such an annoying target," Melissa snorted, "I made a run for it. I heard the blonde coming, cursing and yelling at him. He turned away for one second, one tiny second, which was all I needed… I became a mouse and ran away, far away. I hid in a church on the other side of the city."

"Well, at least you got away," Hellboy smiled.

"Not really. I read in the newspaper that eight animals were shot and killed at the zoo that night. I don't know if he thought I was still there or sending a warning… I managed to get out of town the following night, but he was hot on my trail by the following Monday," Melissa explained moodily, "And that façade lasted for two weeks before I finally got away in the sewers."

"Ouch…" the red demon sympathised.

"Yeah… Well, I'm going to see if Abe needs any more pages turned," Melissa smiled, leaving her couch-potato friend to the cartoons on the TV.

"See ya," he said, and waved with his gigantic right hand.

* * *

Abe pressed the stop button on the interview recording, sensing Melissa's approach. He closed the program down, saving his finished work on the shape-shifter's report. 

"Welcome back," Abe smiled invitingly, watching the girl enter out of the corner of his eye. He was surprised to see Melissa in her human form.

"Hi, what are you up to?" Melissa asked curiously, the sight of the fish-man sitting cross-legged on a computer chair and fumbling with the keyboard quite entertaining.

"Updating reports," Abe answered simply.

"I see… need any pages turned?" the girl asked hopefully.

"Not really, but thank you for offering."

"Oh, okay…"

"You're still worried about those memories, aren't you? And the dream you had…"

"Yes," Melissa nodded solemnly, "And the little boy with the blue eyes…" Melissa stated, staring into Abe's own blue depths, "I want to know who he is… who I am… why he is so important to me."

"I understand that your past is very important, but you must also realise that your future is important too," Abe murmured.

"But—"

"I have no memory of anything prior to being woken up in the bureau. I had been found in an abandoned laboratory in St. Trinian's Foundling Hospital, Washington," Abe explained with absolute calm.

Melissa blinked, stunned, "Oh, I'm sorry…"

"You have nothing to be sorry for," Abe smiled, "I will continue to do as much as I can to restore your memory, just as long as you do not obsess yourself with past events. And you are not to worry about Kroenen stalking you either."

"Why would I worry about him when I have you protecting me?" the shape-shifter grinned, half-chuckling.

"Me, Melissa? I thought you were still worried that I would be reduced to sushi if I ever tried to protect you from the knife-wielding Nazi."

"Ooh, don't talk about raw fish, I'm starving!"

"…"

"Um…"

The blaring alarm cut her off, drowning out any other sound in the room. Melissa leapt from the bookstand to a nearby table; curling up into the form of a rattlesnake, "What _is_ that?" she, the snake hissed, rattling her tail.

"The alarm. Hellboy and I have to leave now, we have a mission to attend," Abe announced, disappearing to get his 'work' dry-suit on.

Melissa shrank back into her coils in fear, '_Leave? Go? He won't come back… I won't be safe… I'll be trapped here, something bad will happen…_'

'_You're becoming paranoid_,' Abe's mind warned lightly.

'_I have a lot to be paranoid about_.'

'_That is true…_' Melissa could almost detect a sigh in his thoughts, '_Would you like to come with us?_'

'_Oh, yes, of course!_' Melissa's mind replied excitedly.

"Wonderful, Professor Broom will be pleased to hear that."

Melissa's head snapped up, seeing Abe enter the library. She watched Abe don his respirator curiously; the ichthyoid already attired in his black dry-suit he wore out of the tank. Abe cocked his head; "Are you coming?" he smiled.

Melissa slid off the table, pausing briefly on the ground to morph into a different animal. A white tiger with eyes the colour of molten amber padded alongside the psychic merman as the pair made their way down the corridors. Melissa did her best to ignore the stares and worried murmurs she received along the walk to the garage, walking closer to Abe.

When Hellboy saw the white tigress he grinned, looking up at Abe he motioned at Melissa; "Hey, big cat."

"I roar," Melissa answered flatly, her canines inhibiting her speech slightly.

"Professor Broom has allowed her to come along with us," Abe confirmed, his tone a little distant as he focused on the conversation with the professor in his mind.

"Good," Hellboy murmured gruffly, turning to get into the garbage truck.

"So… where are we going?" the shape-shifter asked excitedly.

"Museum. Someone let a monster loose, killed a lot of guards," Hellboy muttered, chewing on the cigar in his mouth.

"Well, what do you want me to, uh, _be_?" Melissa asked sheepishly. She suddenly felt more of a burden to them rather than help.

"Anything you like," Abe smiled good-naturedly.

"The tiger was cool."

Melissa smiled shyly, "Thank you." It had been such a long time since anyone had bothered to hold a conversation with her, let alone talk to her kindly.

'_I'm afraid you will have to get used to it, Melissa_,' Abe joked in her mind.

* * *

A/N: Thank you to FlyingFish15 again! great reviews. 


	5. Museum

Animal Instincts

Psycho Llama

Disclaimer: Mike Mignola owns all but mousy. Yes, that **does** mean Mike Mignola owns the world. Flee; flee for your lives!

* * *

Melissa strode over to one of the grand wooden doors of the museum, leading from the Magick exhibit to a hallway of sorts. She looked it up and down, eyes focusing on the spider scuttling along the wooden frame. The shape-shifter bent close and started whispering; the spider stopped. 

Broom watched the girl curiously as she spoke with the spider. She straightened up and looked towards where Abe was looking around the room. From the expressions flitting across the pair's faces, the professor could only guess at the mental conversation they were having. Abe moved over to the same door Melissa stood by, splayed his fingers and pressed them against the grain of the wood.

It certainly made finding which way the evil creature they were after went faster.

As Hellboy went through the door to say 'Hi' to the evil entity as he had announced, Abe sent a telepathic image of the creature he had sensed to Melissa. He picked up one of his books and started leafing through it to see if he could find out what it was. The ichthyoid had certainly seen a sketch of the thing before.

"Rectangular pupils… that'll be good for night-vision," Melissa murmured to herself, counting the different animal traits she could pick apart, '_Octopus eyes… reptilian? The skull looked feline…_'

"Ah, Sammael," Abe announced, tracing the writing in the book with a webbed finger. He flicked his walkie-talkie earpiece on and began narrating to Hellboy.

Melissa moved away from the door at the sound of gunshots. Violence wasn't really her thing. The other agents were all watching the wooden doors separating them from Hellboy and the entity cautiously, listening intently. Melissa drifted around the room, goose bumps dotting her lightly tanned skin.

Something about the unnaturally clean cut through the wooden statue put Melissa on edge. Cuts like that she had only seen too often. '_No_,' she told herself sternly, '_He's probably still running around Belgium wondering how in all my poverty I managed to move so far so fast. He hasn't a clue I am in America. How could he be here? It's impossible. It's impossible. _'

Melissa had hidden herself in one of the BPRD private jets after she had seen Abe and Hellboy fighting a poltergeist in Belgium. The next thing she knew, she was in New Jersey.

Thankfully the shape-shifter didn't spot Kroenen's discarded dagger on the polished ground; she would have recognised it instantly.

To ease her mind off the matter, Melissa tried to interest herself in some of the other exhibits. Maybe she could learn something useful… she didn't want to be one who knew absolutely nothing about reliquaries and cultures from dark times and ancient occults. She had to rely on Abe to wire her some background information during briefings.

'_I'm not sure wether to call that my job or simply a perk_.'

Melissa's cheeks flushed red, '_You're always in there, aren't you?_'

'_Only as long as I am welcome_.'

* * *

'_America. Of all the places in the world, those damned Americans had to bring Anung-un-Rama to America. Damn America… in the middle of nowhere and probably as far away from Europe as possible. As far away from _Belgium_ as possible…'_

"Would you stop your brooding already?" Ilsa snapped at her comrade, "Why are you in such a bad mood anyway?"

Kroenen didn't answer, still glowering into the shadows. Rasputin turned his head in their direction, "He misses his hobbies."

"What, dissecting bodies and playing Wagner all the time?" Ilsa laughed, "I see. In America you would _never_ get away with playing Wagner, what a shame…"

Kroenen stared stoic at the back of his Master's head as the three made their way through the shadows.

"Or are you referring to Kroenen's unexplained absences over the past years, Grigori dearest? I would like to know what he has been doing in all that time. Sometimes you can act so strange, Karl. Like that incident with the talking flamingo."

Even to Rasputin, the statement sounded odd, '_An incident with a talking flamingo? Oh yes, those two are **definitely** part of **my** occult…_'

* * *

"Professor?" Abe called softly, motioning Broom over to him. The ichthyoid kept his voice low to prevent Melissa from overhearing. Melissa had drifted back over to the doors that led to the hallway where Hellboy had been fighting with Sammael. The two had then taken off a while ago, Myers following. Since then Melissa had wandered lifelessly around the exhibits, looking more and more pale with each passing moment. 

Broom strode over to Abe, "Yes?"

"Melissa isn't faring all that well here, she's completely on edge," Abe shared his concerns, looking sadly over at the sickly shape-shifter. She stood rigid beside the massive doorway, her eyes fixated on the wood, trembling slightly every so often.

"What is she worried about?" Broom murmured.

"Her worry is not in her mind… I'm afraid I can't tell." Abe and Broom exchanged a look.

"Would it be better if we sent her back to the bureau, then?" Broom reasoned, weighing his options. It was the girl's first mission, and he would hate to ruin it for her, but then there was her health to consider. Some of the other agents were even murmuring to each other about how terrified the girl looked.

"Perhaps," Abe nodded, returning to his job.

With new resolution, Broom walked calmly over to the shape-shifter. Melissa jumped in surprise when she noticed another human in the near vicinity, "Oh, hi," she blushed.

"Hello. Are you all right? You're starting to look very… pale," Broom noted.

"I don't know… it's just something in this place that seems…" the girl couldn't place it.

"Evil?"

"Yes…" Melissa looked at the ground, "My apologies, I shouldn't let my instincts overcome me like this."

"No, you should. I haven't felt this much evil in one place for a long time, it's got me worried too. You could always go back to the bureau if you are feeling unwell," Broom offered kindly.

Melissa bit her lip. She did want to get as far away from this room as humanly possible, but she didn't want to disappoint the Professor, or Abe. She had to be of some use, she had to get over her childish fear and learn to pull her weight…

"There will be other days, and you've already helped us out a lot on this one."

"It wouldn't be too much of an ask, would it?"

"Safety has no price, it will never be too much to ask," Broom smiled.

Melissa looked incredibly relieved, "Oh, thank you…" she whispered gratefully.

"Here," Broom pulled a piece of paper and a pen out of his pockets, "You should take this bus… this many stops… or at least until you get to this road… And then walk three blocks along and two left…" Broom murmured, drawing up a map of where she should walk after the bus. "And by then one of the agents will be waiting there for you. Or you could wait here for the ride home."

"I'll take the bus, if that's alright," Melissa nodded quietly, "I need to have some idea of what the city looks like at any rate," she smiled sadly.

Broom handed her a small collection of coins to use for the bus, "Safe journey," he beamed.

Melissa thanked him again and left, escorted by one of the agents to the back door so she wouldn't get lost. Broom smiled again and went back over to Abe.

"She's worried that she has disappointed you," Abe murmured.

"Mastering public transport should help remedy that," Broom said, and quietly hoped too.

"Sorry about having to let you guys down like this," Melissa sighed to the agent as he showed her the back door.

"Nah, don't worry. As far as first-times go, yours went pretty well. You've helped out a lot, haven't hindered the mission in any way and you're not injured so far. That's what most of us would call a record."

Melissa laughed, "Thanks. So, which way is the bus stop?"

"Over there, near that candyfloss stand… I'll walk you over," the agent beamed, staring at the candyfloss machine across the road.

Melissa hugged herself tighter from the wall of cold air that hit the moment the pair stepped outside. She smiled at the little children all dressed up in their costumes, dragging their parents along by the hand through the busy carnival atmosphere. She silently wished for her own childhood to come back to her. She wondered if she had been like those children… if she had gone to Halloween carnivals and gorged herself on candy and autumn preservatives…

"Heads up, here comes your bus," the agent called, "Now, are you _sure_ you know where exactly to go?"

"Yes," Melissa nodded nervously.

"And where do you go after you get off the bus?"

"Three blocks along and two blocks left," the shape-shifter beamed.

The agent nodded "…Is this your first time going on a bus?"

"First time in memory," Melissa smiled, "I had no money on the run, and a bus would be a dangerous place for a little mouse or spider to get trapped on."

"Oh well, good luck!" the agent waved, trotting off to join the queue for the candyfloss.

Melissa smiled back, chuckling when she heard one of the children at the candyfloss stand exclaiming at what a cool costume the agent was wearing. The bus came to a stop with the doors exactly in front of Melissa, hydraulics hissing softly as the doors opened.

"H-Hey," Melissa grinned nervously, feeling terribly sheepish, though she was in her human form. She placed the money in the little tray.

"Hiya," the driver welcomed cheerfully, "Why no costume? Workin' late or somethin'?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Melissa blushed. She took the little receipt and stumbled her way down the aisle, being mindful of the small puddle of spilt drink on the floor.

'_See? It's not so bad_,' she told herself, '_I'll be in the car on my way to the bureau in no time. And there's a fail-safe, too. Nothing can go wrong…_' her stomach gurgled in worry, '…_NOTHING can go wrong!_' she assured herself forcefully.

* * *

Abe felt dread creep into him where he stood, holding Kroenen's discarded dagger. Kroenen was in the city… _Melissa_ was in the city. From what the knife showed him, Kroenen and company appeared to be on a mission rather than after the elusive shape-shifter. '_But what if they find her_?' Abe thought in distress. 

"_Move," Ilsa commanded flatly, about to swing her mallet into the glass case surrounding the statue. Kroenen obligingly moved aside. Ilsa swung… Kroenen's arm shot out and stopped the mallet, apparently staring at something on the glass. _

_The Nazi assassin reached his other hand to pick up an ant that had been crawling across the glass pane Ilsa had been poised to obliterate. Ilsa snorted, "Karl Kroenen, a friend to the animals," she muttered. The blonde swung her weapon again and shattered the glass._

"They were here, Professor," Abe told Broom calmly, hardly masking the concern in his voice.

* * *

A/N: Yeah, you all know what's going to happen in the next chapter... hehehe. Thanks again to the reviewers! 

FlyingFish15: Romance guaranteed, and don't worry, Kroenen will be in the next chapter. A lot of the next chapter.

Shadowcat: I'm doing my best to avoid mary-sueism, (frantic editing). Working OCs into the movie plots are always fun to do. It can be challenging but you can also make interesting connections with why people do something, it's always fun. Labrinth fanfics, on the other hand, are usually more about JarethXSarah than introducing OCs, which is why post-movie fics are so very popular. Or alternate endings; _anything_ two get those two back together, heh.

epallidino: Sorry to disappoint, had to be true to the movie. Kroenen and company were already gone when the BPRD got to the scene... but don't worry, the next chapter will have much Kroenen :D

firepup: I know where you live.

Umbra the Dark: Wow, long review, thanks! Hehe, I've seen Teen Titans, it's great. I can't decide if it's Japanese cartoonists trying to be American or American cartoonists doing anime, but it's interesting to watch. :) Liz comes after the Museum, but I'm a bad llama, I'm not including Myers or Liz much in my fanfic.


	6. The Hunting

Animal Instincts

Psycho Llama

Disclaimer: Mike Mignola owns all but mousy. Yes, that **does** mean Mike Mignola owns the world. Flee; flee for your lives!

* * *

The bus was only half-full, most of the town's populace parading around the carnival grounds. And even then, most of the bus-goers were in costume. After the first ten minutes Melissa began to relax, watching the Halloween scenery out of the bus window and feeling strangely… normal. 

As the bus moved away from the carnival grounds there became less and less stops, Melissa kept a close eye on the street names, just to be sure. The shape-shifter grew quickly bored, looking dimly around the bus for something to interest her. She noticed one of her shoelaces coming lose and bent down where she sat to retie it.

The bus came to a halt; Melissa banged her head on the seat in front of her and dropped her shoelace. Grumbling, she went about re-tying the lace again. She heard the bus driver laugh as some more passengers got on the bus, "Nice costume! Sure are gonna frighten a lot of kids with that one!"

Melissa was still fumbling with her shoelace when the newcomers tried to find seats to sit in. The bus had become steadily full as people returning home from the carnival had hopped on. One of them, clearly irked that she had to sit beside another person on the bus, disdainfully took the last seat on the bus beside Melissa.

The shape-shifter sat up calmly, smiling good-naturedly at the blonde sitting beside her. She was looking out the window again when it clicked in her mind. The blonde sitting beside her… she'd seen her before. '_Oh **no**…_'

Ilsa, of course, hadn't recognised her. The last time she had seen Melissa the girl was a pink flamingo. Melissa tried to keep absolutely calm, using all her will power not to jump or run or scream or do anything. She pretended to be shaking from the cold rather than her fear.

Ilsa's scowl deepened, she could feel Melissa shaking through the seat, "Oh it's not _that_ cold," the Aryan growled under her breath.

"Sorry," Melissa mumbled. The girl looked out the window, '_Damn it!_' she thought, '_Now I've lost count of the stops!_' she pulled the hastily scribbled map out of her jacket pocket and tried to find the street name she was on. Only a few more stops left… perhaps she would make it after all.

'_Just as long as **he** doesn't see me_,' the shape-shifter mused, staring at the back of Kroenen's head, two rows in front of her.

Ilsa huffed impatiently, '_Why in the name of Ogdru Jahad are we taking the bus? What is Grigory **thinking**? Public transport… he could at least have chosen one with less people on it…_'

Melissa turned the map Broom had drawn over. He had drawn the sketch on the back of a print-out on the 'Saint Dionysius the Aeropagite' statue. '_Probably printed out for one of the agents_,' Melissa began to read through the article. She felt the blonde sitting beside her stiffen.

"What is that?"

Melissa blinked, "Er… scrap paper, from my… uh, office," well it was _close_ to the truth.

Ilsa narrowed her eyes suspiciously, "Wait… I have heard your voice before."

"Really?" Melissa squeaked, forcing a laugh, "That's interesting…" Ilsa remained sceptical about the girl, keeping a sharp eye on her. Melissa's face lightened when she saw her stop approaching. She hit the little button on the wall beside her and the 'bus stopping' sign flickered to life.

"Well… this is my stop…"

"Who are you?" Ilsa asked stonily; aggravated beyond the norm. The bus came to a halt by the bus stop; the blonde stood up to let Melissa out of the seat.

"Nobody! Absolutely nobody," Melissa squeaked timidly, hurrying off the bus before the blonde could recognise her.

" 'Ave a good night!" the bus driver called.

"I will, thank you!" Melissa called absent-mindedly. She felt her insides freeze… she turned back to the windows of the departing bus, looking straight into the soulless eyes of Kroenen's mask. He had heard her. '_**NO**!_'

Melissa broke into a run, following the route scribbled on the back of the print-out. She heard screaming in the distance and the sound of the bus coming to a halt. She was dead for sure now… the shape-shifter felt ill, '_So close… I_ _was **this** close to having nice, happy life… no running… no fearing for my life…_' she felt tears begin to well in her eyes, '_I should never have left the museum. Abe, help…_' the girl prayed.

She took a deep breath, held it, and puffed it out again, "Oh crap, here we go…" there wasn't enough time to go three blocks along and two left, she had to go direct. She came to the foot of the first building and jumped, catching herself in the air with strong, frantically beating wings. She flew as a hawk to the squared roof of the building and dropped out of the sky. The shape-shifter landed as a panther, dashing off into the shadows.

Escaping death would have been a lot easier if there wasn't that problem with heights.

She couldn't hear or see Kroenen following her, which was a horribly bad sign in Melissa's eyes. It reminded her of a time in France where she had run right into a trap thinking she had finally gotten away.

Melissa crouched in the shadows, trying not to breathe too loudly, waiting for what was about to happen next. The ticking sound came, Melissa morphed into an owl; ready to fly but not sure which direction would be safe. Kroenen's swords dug into the edge of the rooftop and he flipped himself over the lip of the roof.

For a second Melissa's fear worse than death turned to a bitter anger for the assassin that had wrecked what little life she had known. She hesitated too long. Kroenen lunged; Melissa tried to fly away in time. The assassin expertly hooked the owl's foot between his fingers, dragging Melissa back down to Earth. Melissa screamed.

The agent in the lone BPRD car was quite startled to see the rest of the BPRD squad, garbage truck and all, race down the streets at speeds hardly legal and pull up beside him. Broom got shakily out of one of the cars, relying heavily on his walking stick. The agent got out of the car, "Yes, professor?"

"Has Melissa arrived here yet?" Broom asked reverently.

"I'm afraid not… why?" the agent looked concerned.

"She's not on the bus either," another agent announced, listening intently to his earpiece.

"Just as I feared…" Broom whispered gravely, clutching the rosary on his wrist.

'_Professor, she's near by… Kroenen is after her_.'

'_Oh no…_'

A wraith-like scream pierced the night air, like the vocals of a multitude of animals screaming through one, distorted voice. The agents all froze where they stood, looking around for where the screaming came from.

Inside the garbage truck, Hellboy jumped in surprise, "What the—"

"It's Melissa… Kroenen caught her…" Abe murmured distantly, one of his hands drifting in the air trying to read the surroundings clearer.

Melissa twisted in the killer's grip, shifting her form from one animal to the next; trying desperately with wing, claw and bite to escape Kroenen's vice-like hold on her arm. She slipped free and tried to escape again, but Kroenen used the flat side of his sword to stop her. Melissa inwardly cried in desperation.

'_Melissa, don't panic, we're here—_'

"Abe!" Melissa cried, turning her head in the direction she needed to be, where she was meant to be, safe inside one of the BPRD cars… being driven back to the bureau… with friends…

In one last attempt at freedom, the shape-shifter took her human form and swung herself off the edge of the building. Kroenen still had hold of her wrist. Melissa was swung into the side of the building, yelling in pain upon contact with the concrete wall.

'_OW! …Is that a broken rib_?' Melissa thought distantly at the pain in her side. Kroenen was still gripping her by the wrist, but Melissa was positive she'd much rather take her chances with gravity. She looked up in fear, the sight of that death mask so close chilling her to the bone.

_The little boy with the blue eyes looked down at her. His tone severe, yet he looked so worried as he held his best friend's wrist in both hands to prevent her from falling to her death. Melissa could hear rushing water below them and felt her own fear of falling. The boy struggled to pull her up, "Chrissie I told you how dangerous this place was, what were you thinking? You could have fallen…" _

The memory hit Melissa like a flying wall of concrete. Kroenen still had her by the wrist, which was slowly becoming dislocated. Melissa morphed herself into a butterfly, flitting away before the mad assassin could grab her again and scuttled up.

Then she saw her chance. She ran over to the white drainpipe running the length of the building and, shifting into the form of the mouse, she dove down it. Gravity pulled the mouse down the drain as fast as purpose propelled her pursuer up the fire escape ladder.

Kroenen made it to the roof in time to see Melissa dashing down the road in the form of a cheetah. Kroenen growled to himself. Rasputin wouldn't be too pleased at the wasted opportunity. Now the shape-shifter was with Anung-un-Rama, he couldn't interfere.

He moved from rooftop to rooftop, keeping within the shadows. His lidless eyes swivelled behind his mask, following the cheetah's erratic path.

Melissa darted towards the cluster of BPRD cars, startling a few of the agents with her presence, especially the ones that didn't know her. She came to a bowling halt before the cars, running to the first person she recognised and embracing them tightly.

Clay smiled paternally at the clinging figure latched to his side, shaking uncontrollably in fear and adrenalin. Clay escorted the girl to the garbage truck, speaking reassuring words and appraisals to the frightened shape-shifter.

Kroenen's brows twitched at the sappy scene. He couldn't have that now, could he?

* * *

"You'll have to catch me," Hellboy heard Abe murmur as the agents opened the garbage truck door. Hellboy looked at the psychic in confusion, but moved behind him just in case. He wasn't about to faint, was he? 

In a flash of clothes and limbs, Melissa came hurtling into the truck; bowling Abe and, consequently, Hellboy over in a massive, clingy hug.

"…Hey!" Hellboy scowled, sitting at the bottom of the pile.

"Melissa, that's really sweet, but you're cutting off my water supply," Abe's amused voice followed.

Hiccupping, Melissa apologised and let go. Hellboy immediately pulled her into an one-armed bear hug, "You alright, mouse?"

"I think so… can we leave?" the girl asked weakly. She felt the lurch of the garbage truck taking off and relaxed a bit, though her hands still trembled. Abe sat down on the floor beside them with his legs crossed, laying a hand on Melissa's shoulder to try to calm her.

"He won't follow us," Abe reassured, "It's against his orders…" '_You're safe with us, you always will be_.'

"Yeah, he'd never take on either of us anyway, we're just too good. Don't worry, you're safe with us, Mousy," Hellboy added.

Melissa laughed quietly at their timing. She saw the blood on Hellboy's arm, "Hey, your arm is… that looks painful."

"And your ribs are bruised," Abe frowned, gently removing her from Hellboy's embrace to assess how badly hurt she was. As well as the massive bruise on her side, the skin around her wrist also varied from bright red to mottled black and blue. Melissa cradled the limb tenderly.

"We'll buy you a cookie on the way home, alright," Abe smiled, holding out a hand to check her wrist. The shape-shifter reluctantly let the ichthyoid take it.

'_Better be a chocolate-chip cookie…_'

'_With macadamia nuts, I promise_.'

Abe went and fetched her an icepack from the back of the truck for her wrist, '_Hellboy, could you please catch Melissa before_—'

'_Wait… you aren't gonna…_'

'_Red, she's about to faint!_'

"Woah," Hellboy caught Melissa just before her head could hit the floor.

"Oh dear…" Abe murmured as he wrapped the girl's wrist in the icepack.

"Talk about bad luck. She was like _this_ far away from getting… Oh man."

"My fault. I suggested that she be taken back to the bureau."

"Yeah, but you had no idea that knife-boy was going to be out on the streets."

"Her confidence is completely shattered, Red. She did, however, manage unearth another memory."

"Really? Just like that?"

"Something triggered it… and all the work we have been doing to restore her memory has weakened the block preventing her from remembering," Abe explained.

"I am going to pound that creep for treating our little mouse like that…" Hellboy sneered, noticing the bruises developing on Melissa's pale skin.

"Hmm…" Abe pulled Melissa from where she sat propped up against Hellboy's side into his arms, "So, how was Liz?"

Hellboy sighed and got up, able to move again, "She's fine." Hellboy sat down on one of the benches, "Still doesn't want to come back."

"Oh."

"So what did Mousy remember, then?"

"I couldn't be sure… I'll wait until she wakes up again."

* * *

A/N: BOO:) hehehe...

Umbra the Dark: Why thank you:) I'm trying to write as fast as I can... but I'm having problems with Rasputin and I have caught Marysueitis.

theshadowcat: I can't win but you sure have with your characters :) Maggie rules.

FlyingFish15: I'm writing this for you! Your fanfic rocks the world:D jyouzuna!


	7. Infiltration

**Animal Instincts**

_**Psycho Llama**_

**  
Disclaimer:** Mike Mignola owns all but mousy. Yes, that does mean Mike Mignola owns the world. Flee; flee for your lives!

* * *

"_**A**nd father wants me to marry a scientist, now. He keeps going on about the importance of science and how it will one day change the world and blah-blah-blah," the girl mimicked her father's flapping jaw with her hand. She sighed, "What about you? What are your plans for the future?" she asked her friend. The two of them sat there for a while, lying on their backs in the grassy field, clouds progressing endlessly across the sky._

"_Science sounds good right now," the boy joked, earning a light-hearted whack from the girl. He smiled at her, "What do you want to be in the future?"_

"_Something with animals… like a vet maybe," the girl smiled fondly up at the sky._

"_Medicine, then? That's a good choice."_

"_I've always wanted to be a bird, so I could fly away."_

"_Where would you fly, if you were a bird?"_

"_Home, and visit my mother's grave…" the girl's face saddened, "I miss England. I miss my old home…"_

"_Would you come back?"_

"_Huh?" the girl looked surprised, "Of course I would, as long as you were still here." She grinned, "I heard that you're going to university next year, congratulations."_

"_Thank you, I'll visit as often as I can," her friend promised, staring at her with those deep blue eyes… They reminded Melissa of the sea the day her mother had taken her on a picnic at the beach when she was little… like the shimmering water in Abe's tank, even._

_Melissa drifted in and out of her dream, slowly waking into the land of the conscious. The shape-shifter rolled over, desperately clinging to the image of her past._

Amber eyes flickered open; she could smell food. Melissa sat up, beaming at the little plate of cookies on the table beside her bed. They had chocolate chips; they even had macadamia nuts_! 'And they're still warm!_' Melissa thought gleefully, picking one of the cookies up. '_Abe, where ever you are; if you can hear this, thank you SO much!_'

"You're perfectly welcome. Actually it was the kitchen staff who baked them."

Melissa jumped in surprise, looking up at the psychic standing in the doorway, "Oh, good morning! H-how long have you been there for?"

"Not long, I felt you waking up."

"Oh, Right…" Melissa bit her lip, "What have I missed?"

"There are concerns that Sammael laid some eggs when he and Hellboy were underground by the subway. Hellboy, myself and some of the agents will be going down there to see what we can find," Abe explained, pulling up a chair and sitting down.

"Should I come? I could help, I think... there are a lot of places underground that are hard to get to when you're only human, you know."

"No, we've decided to keep you at the bureau until we know what's going on and why Rasputin and his followers are here," Abe told her calmly.

Melissa laid back, staring at the ceiling; "It's my fault, isn't it? Death seems to follow me wherever I go." '_I can't escape it…_'

"I read Kroenen's mind. He was not expecting to see you in America."

Melissa was caught between accusing Abe of accusing her of being a liability… and accusing herself of the same thing. The girl groaned, rubbing her eyes. She had no idea what to do or what to think… should she fight for a life of freedom, as she had always done? Or would it just be an endless cycle of running, hiding and the death of anyone she trusted. Was she fighting the inevitable?

'_Melissa, don't go down that path. Please_.' Melissa looked up her friend's sad face.

"I thought I could start a new life here…" the girl murmured, "I thought it would be different."

"It is different. And it is not your fault that Kroenen is running into us; it's more our fault that Kroenen is running into you. There's quite a history between the BPRD and Rasputin's followers," Abe paused, "If you came with us, we could not guarantee your safety if we became separated at all."

Melissa shivered at the thought. She laid back down, curling into a ball, her back to the fish-man; "Okay, I'll stay…"

"Thank you," Abe rose to leave.

'_Don't get hurt…_'

'_Minor ailments and injuries are part of the job. I'll try not to get hurt too seriously_.'

'_Good. You must have spent enough time in my head to know I'd go mad without you_.' A red haze descended over Melissa's cheeks.

'_The thought is mutual, dear_.' Melissa smiled slightly, the blush deepening.

The alarm bell sounded, tearing viscously through the bureau. Abe scowled at the ceiling, "What was that for? He knows I'm coming!" grumbling, but stealing himself to give a polite farewell to Melissa, Abe trudged out of her room.

* * *

**B**room knocked audibly on the library door. Melissa sat curled up on one of the plush armchairs inside of the small library, focusing intently on her hands. She had since changed into a long, almost Gothic black dress that made her look even more pale and skeletal than she already was. The girl looked up, her golden-amber eyes containing cat-like slitted pupils, she blinked them back to normal, "Oh, hello." 

"Hello," Broom grinned cheerfully, "I see you've been practicing on your talent…"

"I had no idea until Abe pointed it out that I could mix different sets of DNA," Melissa beamed, "But I'm getting there. I can get almost four different sets going at once…"

She demonstrated by sprouting a giant dove-white wing out of her back alongside an equally giant bat wing to the left. Her face then distorted a little; caught halfway between human and bird, looking pained. She maintained it for a little while, then her left arm became a bat wing and half of her body became bird.

Broom jumped to his feet in surprise at the struggling mass of feathers and scales, worried as of how to help her. The rapidly shifting form soon boiled down to the white bird. Melissa lay flat on her back on the ground, "Um, I'm sorry you had to see that…"

"Are you alright?" Broom asked hesitantly.

"I'm alright. It doesn't hurt when it happens," Melissa shrugged her wings.

"Thank goodness for that… It—it's definitely impressive, though," Broom sat down in an adjacent chair, "I came to have a talk. About last night, to be precise."

"The bus trip was fun, just not the part after," Melissa smiled timidly, human once again.

"Yes, so I heard. How are your injuries?"

"Good, I heal quickly," Melissa nodded.

"Undoubtedly," Broom chuckled.

Melissa sighed deeply, hanging her head; "I'm worried about Hellboy and Abe… when do you think they'll be back?"

Broom checked his watch, brow furrowing, "Not sure exactly… Do not worry yourself. I am sure they are fine."

* * *

**M**elissa wandered listlessly around her room, rearranging the few possessions she had acquired since joining the BPRD. She had run out of things to write about in her diary, one of her favourite ways to pass time. She had almost become obsessive with the little thing, keeping a copy of her memories in case she ever lost them… again. 

The sound of running footsteps and shouting voices outside of Melissa's room reached her sensitive ears. Stepping out, she saw the medical team rushing madly back and forwards, cold dread hit her like a bucket of water.

A stretcher wheeled around the corner, carrying agent Clay… Melissa paled; she had seen injuries like those many times before. Panicking, she rushed back inside of her room, closing the door behind her. Where were Abe and his comforting thoughts? She screwed her eyes shut, willing the mental image of the ichthyoid with similar injuries out of her head.

"Quick, get him in the medical tank," she heard a muffled voice from the corridor.

"Oh no…" Melissa slipped under the door as a spider, then became human again. She winced at the sight of the deep gashes on Abe's chest, '_What happened down there?_' she wondered in dismay. Abe's mind wasn't even in there to comfort her.

"Mousy!" Hellboy called, following the procession, "Um… come on," Hellboy couldn't find the words, so just tried to get her away from the medical wing.

"What happened?" Melissa demanded, tears stinging her eyes.

"Sammy got Abe when he was in the water. Must've dropped the pinkie…"

"Pinky? …And Clay?" Melissa turned around instinctively, hearing another stretcher being wheeled along.

"Look forwards," Hellboy growled.

"Why…" she asked, looking backwards. Melissa's question died in her throat. The stretcher came around the corner, Kroenen's body lying upon it. Like a clever magician's trick, Melissa suddenly became a white pigeon and took off, flying as far and fast as her little wings could take her away from the corpse.

"Aw nuts…" Hellboy mumbled, chasing after her.

"Why did you bring him here?" Melissa yelled, stopped in the corridor near where Abe's medical tank was, back in her human form.

"He's dead; it's called an autopsy," Hellboy snarled, his patience long since gone.

"D-dead? How… what killed him?"

"Clay, right as the bastard stabbed him."

"Oh, I'm sorry. How is Clay?"

"They're saying he won't survive the night."

"And Abe?"

"He'll make it, don't worry. He's been hit by worse."

Melissa nodded, "Hellboy, I'm sorry about Clay…"

"Not your fault."

'_No, it probably was…_' Melissa mused sadly, she did not have the courage to say it out loud.

Hellboy cocked his head to the side, trying to see Melissa's face better, as hair hung in a curtain obscuring her face. She was shaking again. Hellboy figured it must have been from Kroenen being so close, even if he was dead. Even Hellboy felt uneasy having the Nazi being in the bureau.

'_Must feel like mousy got a snake dropped in her cage…_' Hellboy nudged Melissa's shoulder lightly with his giant stone hand, "Hey, why don't you grab some chilli and hide out in my room. Dead or alive, that thing ain't going near my den."

"Thank-you." Melissa turned, giving the unconscious, bobbing Abe a sad look of longing before walking silently making her way towards the kitchens.

* * *

**"M**elissa! Finally, I was worried you were going to miss dinner again!" the cook grinned upon seeing Melissa enter the cafeteria. 

"Hello again," Melissa smiled dimly, "What can you suggest in the way of chilli? Red's been on my case for ages about trying some," the girl sighed wearily.

"Well there's a chilli, some chilli or _the_ chilli."

"...Are they all the same chilli?"

Luigi thought for a bit, and eventually nodded, "Yeah, all the same chilli."

"I'll have some chilli, then," Melissa grinned, picking up a bowl from the stacks of crockery.

"It's the best kind," Luigi grinned. Melissa thanked him graciously for the food, taking her leave of the cafeteria to go have chilli with Hellboy.

* * *

"**M**yers, you're a talker. What's a good, solid word for 'need'?" 

Melissa stopped eating to see what Myers would say. She was perched on one of the tables, as a cat, eating the chilli straight out of the bowl. Chilli didn't seem to be her favourite food, but oddly seemed to be her cat form's favourite. Hellboy thought it was funny, and kept laughing whenever Melissa went to clean her face with the napkin, complaining of all the mess.

"Need's a good, solid word."

"Nah, too needy."

Melissa chuckled into her chilli, the sound a bit perturbing to Myers. She raised her tabby head, licking her face clean, "Long? Crave?" an image of Abe floated through her mind, "...Desire?"

"Hmm…" Hellboy frowned, deciding on the level of neediness of each one. Melissa shrugged and went back to her chilli.

"Oh, my God... Look at them all! Who had babies?" Liz murmured at the feline army occupying Hellboy's room.

She saw the silver tabby cat eating from the bowl of chilli and scowled, "Aw, one of them got to the chilli. Bad cat!" Liz scolded, taking Melissa away from her dinner.

"Uh, Liz…?"

"No, no! Put me down! Please!" Melissa yelped, '_Heights… ugh… dizzy…_'

Liz started, dropping the cat; "You… found a cat that talks?"

"No. Found a talker that 'cats'."

"Really?" Liz turned back to the cat. Instead she found herself looking at a little badger picking the bowl of chilli up while standing on its hind legs.

"It was a pleasure to meet you Miss Sherman," Melissa smiled, waving a friendly black paw. '_I need time to think…_'

"Yeah, you too," Liz replied thoughtfully, watching the badger go.

* * *

**P**rofessor Broom walked out of the autopsy room sighing. He saw Melissa's pale frame leaning against the outside wall. She looked at him distantly, seeming lost. Broom did his best to put on a smile, "Oh hello, how long have you been here?" 

"A short while," Melissa whispered under her breath.

"Ah."

"You—you said he was born in 1897. Did you mean…"

"There was no error. That was the year he was born," Broom chuckled at the agape expression on her face.

"You mean… all this time I've been chased around by some—some old guy in a mask?" Melissa looked ready to accept this as some sick kind of joke, "Some _really_ old guy in a mask?"

Broom chortled, "More or less. Then again he seems to have been of the un-dead for quite a while."

"Hmm…" Melissa gave the door towards the autopsy room an uncomfortable look, '_How can you die if you're already un-dead?_'

Broom braced her shoulder, "Look on the bright side, you no longer have anyone to fear. You should thank Clay for that after he recovers, which he most definitely will, I pray."

Melissa grimaced in repulsion at the memory of the bloody wound in Clay's gut. It was unsettling… more of an attack than a simple execution, which wasn't like the clockwork assassin.

"Well, I have to go figure out the next piece of the puzzle," Broom announced, holding up the pieces of parchment. Melissa nodded, watching him leave.

The girl stood outside in the corridor for a while longer, debating on wether or not to go in. To face her demons… '_Demon, singular. And he's **dead**_.' She drew in a deep breath of resolution and pushed open the door.

The stitches were apparent even through the plastic sheet laid on top of the corpse. '_…Suffered a masochistic compulsion, commonly known as surgical addiction…_' the professor's words rung in her mind. Melissa stood in front of the closed door, her hand still on the knob. Gulping, she moved away and over to the table where the assassin's effects were displayed. Not once did she turn her back on the creature, even dead she did not trust him not to leap out and grab her.

Her mind slowly pieced the concept of what Kroenen was together from Broom's recording and the evidence before her. She had no idea that he was this… creepy. '_Manners_!' one part of her brain irked, '_Hey, this guy has been after my blood for years, why the hell should I be using manners?' 'Oh, I swore…_'

"Alright, you're creepy. I don't care if it's rude, you just are!" Melissa stated pointedly at the dead body. It didn't move. '_Thank God…_'

Melissa stalked awkwardly towards the operating table. Eyeing Kroenen's corpse suspiciously. She remembered what Broom had said about his face. No eyelids, no lips… '_That would explain the lack of speech, then_.'

She found herself standing beside the head of the table. She reached a hand to try and lift the plastic sheet off, to get a better look at her pursuer's face. She had never seen anything but the mask, giving the assassin the daunting detachment from human emotion that chilled the blood in her veins.

She reached her hand, then abruptly pulled it back, unable to find the courage to lift the sheet. She tried a few times more, with little success. "He's dead, he's dead," she murmured to herself. She took the corner of the plastic covering and pulled it down to expose his face.

Melissa clamped a hand over her mouth just in time to stop a scream tearing through the air. His eyes were pointing directly at her. Her knees gave and she collapsed onto the ground, looking horrified. The eyes didn't follow her.

'_Damn that was creepy!_' she cursed herself for being such a coward, '_But weren't his eyes facing the ceiling when I entered…?_' Melissa gulped, she couldn't be sure. The shape-shifter suddenly felt extremely cold. The fact that he had no eyelids or lips didn't even phase her, all that she had seen of his face were those pallid blue eyes staring straight through her.

'_If I run, and he's alive, I won't have a chance. Then again not-running could prove equally fatal_.' Melissa slowly got to her feet. Hugging herself tightly, and not just from the coldness of the autopsy room.

The girl bit her lip, "I suppose it would be pretty pointless to ask wether you were dead or not." No answer, Melissa hesitated.

He had no pulse. As far as Melissa could remember, he never had. But even with his clockwork ticking sound gone, she didn't trust the corpse, "…But you are dead. You are dead. I am talking to a corpse!" Melissa threw her hands up in disbelief, "Do you have any idea how stupid that sounds? Oh, I have gone crazy. And I blame you, you know," Melissa muttered bitterly, "Stupid corpse… which is **dead**."

But still there was no movement from the dormant killer. Melissa moved forwards, cautiously, and poked his arm. It felt cold, cold and dead. Melissa scowled, "Would you stop that? _Please_, I know you're not dead!"

She was afraid to accept his death. If she accepted, she would drop her guard. If she dropped her guard, he would come back and kill her.

"Why have you been after me all this time?" she whispered. Was it her past? Was there some terrible secret in her 'former life' that had seen an assassin hired to kill her?

"Fine! Play dead! See if I care!" she hissed, silently hoping that the thing was dead, once and for all. She felt tired, physically and mentally. Even spiritually… She sighed and turned her back on the operating table, leaning against it. She buried her face in her hands, breathing deeply. Her own shaky breathing drowned out the sound of Kroenen's own inhaling.

By the time the rustle of plastic reached her ears, it was too late. She pulled her hands away from her face in time to feel cold metal pierce the skin of her neck. '_A knife?_' she thought in sheer panic. No, it felt more like a needle. Then it felt like nothing at all. Her entire body went numb and her vision went dark.

'_Emergency sedative. That's terrible_.'

"**N**n," Melissa grunted, bringing a hand up to rub her sore eyes. Her arm felt tingly, as if she'd been sleeping on it. In fact, she could feel pins and needles all over. 'Guess he was playing dead…' the shape-shifter rolled herself off the operating table, which hurt. She managed to sit up, surveying the area. No sign of Kroenen, Melissa felt the familiar cold touch of fear crawl across her skin.

She became a mouse and stumbled numbly out of the autopsy room. She had to get Hellboy; he was the only one who could help. It hurt; she kept stubbing her numb fingers and toes. Melissa feared the assassin appearing at any moment, but she continued towards Hellboy's room.

' "_Dead or alive, that thing ain't going near my den,",_' Hellboy's words reverberated through her little mouse brain. Melissa prayed that she would be able to find the great red ape before the Kroenen found her.

'_I need speed_,' the shape-shifter mused franticly, '…_and silence._' The mouse dove to the ground, gliding across the smooth, tiled floor inaudibly as a dark green serpent. Venom would be ineffective on Kroenen; the clockwork Nazi had blood like sand, the poison would not be enough to kill him. Melissa wondered what _could_ kill the assassin.

Testing the air with her forked tongue, Melissa tasted blood. Kroenen had killed. But whom had he killed? It had the air of human blood, was it one of the agents? Elizabeth Sherman? Melissa shuddered, '_Try not to think about it. Just focus on getting to Hellboy_.'

Melissa slithered vertically down a metal pipe towards the fifty-first door. The door stood ajar for some reason, the shape-shifter slithered through, '_The smell is getting stronger, someone in here has been murdered…_'

The girl stopped short, right at the ankles of the blonde she had sat beside on the bus. Ilsa looked down and jumped, "Ack! What is that snake doing here?" the blonde yelled angrily.

Melissa hissed reflexively, baring her pearly fangs. Ilsa's yelling had caught the attention of the other two people in the room. The shape-shifter sensed their presence, Kroenen, the bald man and the one who was murdered, Professor Broom. Melissa felt ill, '_He killed the professor… Clay, Moss, anyone, just please, not the professor. He's dead. He's dead! Hellboy…_'

Melissa's serpentine body arched off the ground, growing in size. Two spotted, furry cheetah arms sprouted from either sides of her torso as she morphed into the fastest animal she could think of. Yellow and black fur sprouted even as she was in movement. Melissa darted past Ilsa and the bald man; her thoughts focused solely on reaching Hellboy.

Kroenen moved to cut her off, knives extended menacingly, blood from the murder of Professor Broom glistening on one metal blade. Melissa expertly stopped inches before the clockwork assassin. The shape-shifter roared, in pain, in anger, in frustration… '_I will never be rid of this curse_.'

Kroenen was not moved, his soulless lenses glinting warningly. Melissa growled, crouching low. She sprung to the side and around Kroenen before he could react, '_I can't believe I got past him!_'

Melissa bounded through the door and along the corridor, '_Hellboy… where are you…?_'

The world rushed past in a blur, she could hear footsteps running after her.

'_He killed the professor…_'

The footsteps were getting louder, closer. She could hear the sound of the assassin's blades slicing through the air.

'Abe is wounded…'

The thick doors leading to Hellboy's den were only a few lunges away. Melissa leapt and dove downwards. The crack between the door and the floor magnified and her vision split into a multitude of tiny windows. The spider slid easily under the door and into Hellboy's den.

"Hellboy! Red! You have to help, there's…" Melissa's voice faded out to a squeak. The gaping hole in the wall seemed to laugh at her. Hellboy was gone. The professor was dead. Abe was incapacitated.

And she could hear the mechanical locks holding the door to Hellboy's den slowly clicking open.

* * *

**H**ey everybody! Sorry for the long update, exams have been hell. 

Anyone wanting to contribute to the story, I'd love your ideas! I need ideas, lol. Just email me, my email is on my author page. Thanks all!

**Tenku Greywords:** Thanks for the comment! Glad you like it:)

**Umbra the Dark:** Hehe, glad the story came across as scary this time. Usually I'm hopeless! Thanks for the review!

**MetalMyersJason:** Oops, I guess I let it happen again. My bad. ;) Danke!

**theshadowcat:** Hmm, I'm trying to think of more ways to get Liz involved. I'll do my best :D thanks for the comments.

**FlyingFish15:** Danke! Whoops, my poor little bus passengers… hope none of you got too attached to the bus driver! ;) Tea-hee

**Gestalt:** Yes, cookies for Nightcaster :D I know she loves 'em. Thanks for the reviews!

**Afrieal:** Visualisation! Love it! Thanks for the kind words. ALL HAIL MIGNOLA! JA!

**HLSWINGS:** I WILL, DON'T WORRY:) Thanks muchly!

**Thrior:** Thank you! Yeah, I want shape shifting too. :D Fun times.

**epalladino:** Don't worry, I've been away for even longer, regrettably. :D Thanks! I've always found it fun to work new characters into existing plots and making connections with random things, like Kroenen killing Clay. Hehe. Thank you very much for the nice comments :)

**Silver-Kalan:** :) Thank you! I will keep writing as long as I don't run out of ideas, or time.

**Gijinka Renamon:** Thanks, I will

**Goddess of Twilight:** YES! I will join! I will be the minion of llamas and I shall own all of my little New Zealand! Aha:D I think it was the tea. Nightcaster will agree with me there. Tea and German chocolate! Tea-hee:)

**boogalaga:** Thank you so much for your appraising review of Mousy:D I'm so glad you find her a good character! You rule:)


	8. The Chase

**Animal Instincts** **Psycho Llama**

**Disclaimer:** Mike Mignola owns all but mousy. Yes, that does mean Mike Mignola owns the world. Flee; flee for your lives!

* * *

**K**roenen slammed his shoulder into the heavy door, the thick metal yielding obediently and swinging wide open to slam into the adjacent wall. Kroenen's steely gaze observed the room coldly, seeking out his prey. His eyes fell on the crawling kindle of kittens huddled in one corner of Hellboy's extensive den. Kroenen preferred the underground sewers to the mess of Hellboy's room. 

Melissa had vanished. Was she hiding among the kittens? Was she crouched in the opposite corner as a small, insignificant insect desperately praying that he would overlook that half of the den? Kroenen's dry cackle broke through the silence. He would find her.

The shape-shifter in question was sprinting through the streets as fast as humanly possible, chest heaving and throat red-raw, '_He was right behind me, right behind me! Where do I go? Who do I have to turn to?_' tears dribbled down her human face, '_I have no one. No one. Even if I could find Hellboy and the others, who's to say he won't kill them too? Or Abe?_' she screwed her eyes shut, '_Abe!_'

Melissa jumped and spun around a corner as the clutter of metal garbage lids sounded behind her. Melissa ducked into a dark relief in the alleyway, '_I can't think. I can't think. What animal? What to be_?'

Twin blades crashed down either side of Melissa's head, burying themselves in the concrete wall behind her. Melissa's heart almost died in her chest. She twisted away as a raven just as Kroenen had freed one of the baton blades and brought it crashing down where she had been only seconds earlier. The shape-shifter sailed to the wrought-iron fire escape bolted to the side of the building, landing as a panther, hoping the dark night would help camouflage her obsidian fur. Sweeping upwards through the stairs she heard a whistling sound as one of Kroenen's throwing knives barely missed her right ear.

Kroenen was ascending the fire escape only seconds behind her. Melissa was straining every muscle just to keep ahead of the mechanic assassin, darting up floor after winding floor.

She reached the top of the building, desperately blocking out her fear of heights. She pulled herself over the lip of the building with human arms and sped across the top. The boots chafed against her feet, she exchanged them for the lioness' powerful back legs. That gave her an idea.

Melissa sped up, muscles burning in protest. Kroenen and his screaming blades on her heels, she dove over the side of the building. Her feet remained feline, but her arms changed and enlarged into feathered wings of an eagle proportionate to her body. Bigger wings meant flying further, and faster. Bones hollowed and lightened as she glided over rooftops. Her tail flapped uselessly in the air behind her.

'_Tail?_' the tan-coloured fur crept slowly up her thighs, the change progressing without her control. Melissa inwardly cursed_, 'I have to land…_' the shape-shifter spied a vacant rooftop and circled around to land before the lioness form completely overtook her. Front paws extended to land; then she saw the sinister glint of metal. Kroenen's blade cut through her muscle as if it were made of liquid. Blood spurted from a severed artery, Melissa's inhuman vocal chords screamed.

* * *

**A**be woke with a start and almost choked on the water in his tank. He could feel the death in the air… the death of the professor… the lingering impression of evil throughout the bureau. The ichthyoid thrashed about violently, pounding at the glass with whatever he had. Web-like cracks appeared where he had struck the thick sheet of glass. Abe swam upwards, ripping tubes from his body and spilling over the top of the tank. He landed like a wet sack of potatoes on the lino floor, writhing and gasping in pain and determination. 

The wounds on his chest began to bleed anew, Abe cried pitifully out into the cold, empty air, '_Where are they? Red, Liz, Myers… Melissa?_' '_The professor is dead. The professor is dead. The professor is dead. Where is everyone? Why is nobody helping the professor!_'

The loss of blood steadily drove Abe's mind into further and further darkness. With one final, mourning moan and he fell unconscious.

* * *

**M**elissa felt a similar dizziness in her own dark mind. She tumbled loosely over the side of the building, bouncing off her bruised back and continuing to sprint clumsily away. '_He knows I'm injured. He's trying to corner me…_' she mused weakly. 

The feline sprinted down the street on all fours, scaring anyone that came in her path. She saw an open window and took a chance, leaping in the slim gap as a jack rabbit, bounding across the stranger's kitchen floor. She heard a crash as someone broke down the front door, not even bothering to guess whom.

Rabbit blood ran down her arm in rivets, leaving dark red paw prints on this person's clean kitchen floor. With the last of her strength, she hopped up onto the kitchen counter and threw her weight into the sink.

Kroenen skidded over to the sink, but arrived too late. Melissa had vanished down the drain. Kroenen growled in frustration. His grip on the counter tightened, leaving dent marks.

"Mommy?"

Kroenen spun, knives unsheathed. The child didn't even have time to scream.

* * *

**M**elissa drifted aimlessly with the water current, her little gills struggling to suck some oxygen out of the water, '_There's something to tell the scientists when I get back… fish **do** feel pain…_' 

She remembered the world going completely black, then coming back into focus with a sharp burst of pain in what was once her arm, and then everything went dark once more. She lost count of how many times she fainted in the drain current. Then she awakened, human, choking on sewerage.

Her sensitive nose reeled at the stench. She stretched her good arm and legs out to stop herself from tumbling any further.

Melissa found herself stuck in a sewerage pipe just big enough for one to sit hunched inside with her head bowed, gallons of filthy water rushing by like a diseased water slide. Coughing fits racked her already sore throat.

"Nn," Melissa winced, cradling her injured arm to her chest. The wound was already healing quite nicely; the bleeding had definitely stopped, but the pain remained. Melissa shuddered from the cold and began to slowly crawl through the sewerage pipe, "Where to go… where to go…" she sang to herself softly; "Maybe I should move to Antarctica and hide under the ice caps. I'm sure there's at least one species in me that can survive in the artic."

Melissa came to a junction point, the sewerage pipe spilling out into a main chamber, '_Now, where's a manhole I can get out of?_' Melissa trudged through the sludge despondently; '_I wonder where I am… I wonder how Abe is doing…_' the thought flittered through her mind, "No, that's the past. He's gone, I've passed him," she hissed to herself.

The shape-shifter looked upwards, but something caught her ear. She turned her head; it was too dark to see anything. All she felt was a rush of wind and a crushing weight throwing her backwards, pinning her shoulders to the slippery floor, her head forced underwater. The assassin's grip shifted from her arms to her throat, throttling the last of the air out of the shape-shifter's lungs.

Strategically placed gills opened behind the girl's ears. Sensing his strategy wasn't working; Kroenen raised one arm out of the water. Melissa couldn't see what the arm was preparing to do though the murky depths, or what it was about to strike with. She rolled, shrinking in size, trying to get away. The little fish swam forwards, invisible beneath the filthy waters.

'_Forwards! Forwards, through the grate…_'

Kroenen's black leather-clad fingers raked through the water, trying in vain to scoop the shape-shifter up before she swam away. A little green frog hopped silently out of the water and silently back into it again a few feet ahead of the assassin. Kroenen was quick to follow.

Melissa sighed in relief as she passed the iron grate; '_Now I need to find a manhole. That grate will only buy so much time. He will just find another way, keep coming after me…_'

A scream of metal on metal bit through the air. The grate fell with an ominous splash and clatter.

'_That's just not fair…_'

Kroenen stepped out into the neighbouring chamber, winding himself up roughly. The frustration of the chase was turning into a burning anger. He had lost track of the shape-shifter, again. Once the most acclaimed assassin in Germany; now reduced to chasing wild animals through sewerage systems. He had run out of time to catch his prey; Rasputin was expecting him back. He sheathed his baton blades, piercing eyes still sweeping over the dark surroundings, hoping to spot a creature that did not belong.

Kroenen saw nothing. Reluctantly, he turned around and headed in the direction of his lair above the subway station. The assassin silently hoped that the injury would prevent his prey from getting too far ahead of their game while he was away, but he knew it would make no difference; not in the long run.

Melissa lay silent in the grimy water, just in case the assassin doubled back to pounce on her, '_Am I alive?_' she felt her arm twinge painfully in protest, '_Yes, I am alive_.'

After ten minutes of silence, Melissa let herself relax into her human form. She broke the surface breathing slowly, '_And this time, he will not hear me,_' Melissa decided bitterly.

The shape-shifter was surprised at how much she longed for the protection and companionship of her friends, Hellboy and Abe. She didn't even get time to meet their friend, Liz. Melissa drew her legs up to her chest, weeping unabashedly. '_I've destroyed their family. I can't go back; they'll hate me. They'll turn me over to that—that monster…_'

'_Where do I go now? Where do I hide?_'

She couldn't find the answer.

* * *

"**T**hey didn't find any traces of the sedative in Pops," Hellboy stated, finally breaking the silence between Abe and himself. 

"No, they probably used it on Melissa," Abe replied mournfully.

"Mousy… God, what do you think they're going to _do_ to her?"

"I don't know," Abe murmured, "But I hope… Red, there's something you should know…"

Hellboy looked up at the ichthyoid, his yellow eyes darkening; "What?"

Abe fidgeted with his Rubik's cube, "There was an agent going through Dr Kroenen's file before… before the incident."

"And?"

"He found a photo, you see. It was an old black and white one dated some time around September 1907. It was from the school Dr Karl Kroenen attended as a child."

"Abe—" Hellboy growled impatiently.

"It was a school photo…"

"Cut to the point."

"Red…" Abe looked pained, "_Melissa_ was in that photo. Beside him."

* * *

"_**F**ather… what…" the young lady was speechless, looking down at the man of science that was her father. He was extracting blood from a little fieldmouse on the table; around him other vials of blood samples, all with different labels of which animal they had been collected from. _

"_What… is this," the girl looked ill, horrified, disturbed. _

"_I told you never to come down here," the scientist sighed, capping the vile of the mouse blood as the poor creature lay dying, "Pity, you know, but you'd make a great host for this new experiment I'm trying, little Chrissie. My greatest work, really…"_

The girl was speechless, staring at her father in horror. Where was the paternal figure she had always respected and loved? Who was this disgusting vampire? "Father, what's going on? This—This isn't right…" she looked around the room. Caged animals… dead animals, their remaining blood rusting the wire that kept them tied down.

Her father sighed, brown eyes downcast, "So much like your mother, so moralistic… And I tried so hard to get that side out of you, little Chrissie. As I said, it is a pity."

Melissa watched on helplessly as her own father fired a tranquilliser dart at her, the dart piercing her in the neck. Melissa gasped, inky blackness ebbing into her vision. She dropped to her knees on the blood-slicked floor.

That was why her father refused to speak of his work down in the lower levels of his laboratory. How could such a twisted man appear so trustworthy? 'Father, was it something I did?' was the last thought her mind conceived as she was dropped into unconsciousness.

* * *

**M**elissa inhaled sharply, her eyes snapping open. It took a while to calm her pulse enough to breathe evenly. She couldn't shake the images of her father's laboratory from her mind; the gore, the dead, the half-operated on bodies… The look of torture on those poor creatures' faces… faces that she could _understand_. They had become her faces now. She looked out through the eyes of dead creatures; it made her feel dirty just to be alive. 

Melissa clawed gently at her furry face, '_Abe… where are you? I can't face all these memories alone…_'

She dropped down onto all fours, her little feet scampered softly across the wooden floor as she went, searching for forgotten breadcrumbs in the darkness. She avoided nibbling on the actual loaf of bread that had been stored in the cupboard. If the baker saw the teeth marks he would certainly become suspicious.

"I never thought I would be missing Red's chilli," Melissa muttered in an undertone, '_Red…_'

"Who's there?" someone called from outside the cupboard.

'_The baker!_' Melissa shot back into a darkened corner, pressing her furry body against the hardwood wall. The cupboard doors flew open, unsettling dust and crumbs alike. A middle-aged man stuck his shaven head in the already cramped cupboard, squinting about in the darkness. He spied the little field mouse in the corner, his eyes glinted dangerously, "Aha! Now I've got you, ya little rodent!" the man pulled back, reaching for something up on top of the counter.

'_A butcher's knife?_' the shape-shifter thought in clichéd panic.

"Ha-ha!" the baker grinned, shoving the grubby mouse trap into the cupboard, complete with the small cube of cheese as the bait. Melissa's beady black eyes looked up at the baker uncertainly. The baker grinned widely, revealing his yellowing teeth, "Go on, try it! That's some really nice cheese there, you know."

Melissa looked down at the cheese. Indeed, her mouse senses were screaming at her to explore the trap and follow the wonderful smell, but Melissa knew better than that, however strong the instincts were.

"Weird mouse you are. What, can't ya smell it?" the baker scowled.

'_I can smell, but you, dear sir, smell infinitely more potent_.' Melissa reflected moodily.

"Alright, that's it. You get the cage," the baker reached up for the wire mesh cage resting atop the kitchen counter. Melissa made no attempt to run away. She needed the rest. The shape-shifter good-naturedly allowed the baker to scoop her roughly into the wire cage and lock her inside.

Foreign memories immersed her soul like a raging tsunami.

Before her eyes Melissa saw a different cage, the same design but stained dark red with spilled blood and torn flesh. The mouse fought for its life, it squealed as loud as its little lungs would permit, but the primal knowledge of inevitable death haunted its mind. There was a blinding pain radiating from her chest; Melissa looked down to see a metal javelin wedged into her chest cavity, the needle draining her of her blood. She knew she would not last much longer; blissful death would soon silence the pain.

And so the mouse died.

Melissa screamed, thrashing about the cage with her rapidly changing limbs. Her half-human arms struggled wildly to open the cage, tearing on the sharp ends of broken wire. The blood only panicked her more. Melissa tumbled out of the cage and landed sprawled on the floor, arms wrapped around her chest as she gulped down air.

The baker was almost experiencing a panic attack himself. He ran out of the kitchen in a flash, heading for the nearest telephone.

'_Not possible… not possible…_' Melissa's mind tried to assure herself_, 'I was not born a mouse. Those are not my memories…_' she screwed her face up and screamed again as memories from several different animals flooded her mind with images of their own gory deaths.

* * *

"**C**hristine Fielding. Born 1898 in London, England. Moved to Germany when she was eight years old… disappeared in 1916. Her father was working for the Nazis with bio engineering technology. Fusing the blood of animals and humans together; completely different from Dr Karl Kroenen, who specialised in working with the fusing of metal and flesh…" 

"She looks good for her age. Just past her centennial… should've thrown a party," Hellboy mused, pacing in front of Abe's medical tank.

"I suspect her father used her as a prototype… he might have put her in stasis, which would explain why the doctors at the hospital said she was dead when they found her. Cryogenic sleeping."

"Creepy…"

"Indefinitely."

Hellboy chewed the end of his cigar nervously; "Do you think Mousy knows?"

"Not unless Kroenen or the others have told her. Then again, memories could be unearthed… I'm just worried that she will remember what her father did to her before we can get her back, it could be very traumatic if not handled properly," Abe lamented, moving around the medical tank and trying not to get tangled in the mass of wires.

"What kind of sick bast—person would do that to their own kid?"

"Evil Nazi scientist?"

"Point taken."

"Please try to find her. Bring her back," Abe pleaded.

"I will, for Mousey's sake at least."

"Thank you…"

* * *

"**P**lease don't involve the police," Melissa barely managed a whisper, "He's always watching the police… just in case they find me." 

"Who is?" the baker asked nervously, handing her a stronger cup of tea.

"Thanks. It's…" Melissa made a strange whining sound at the back of her throat, "Hard to explain. Every person," '_Every **human** person_,' "I have involved has ended up brutally murdered."

"Damn," the baker muttered, his face considerably paler.

"I need to get out of New Jersey before he can follow me. I have to leave…" she fidgeted nervously, taking a few short sips from the hot tea.

"Where are you going to go?"

Melissa shrugged, "I don't know. I need to hide some place where he will never think of going… but then again, he will probably search the places that he will think that I will think that he would never think of searching."

"That's complex…"

Melissa took a large gulp of tea; "I know where I have to go… Where it won't matter if he follows me." She tilted her head back and downed the rest of the scalding tea. She placed the cup gently on its saucer; "I have to go home."

The baker chuckled, "Kansas, Dorothy?"

Melissa smiled, "No… Germany."

* * *

"**I**'m sorry I wasn't around long enough to get to know her. She sounds really sweet," Liz smiled, touching her hand to the opposite side of the glass from Abe's own. 

"She would have liked you very much," Abe nodded.

"Hey, don't worry, I'm sure she's fine. Maybe she got away. She could be hiding in town…" Liz suggested hopefully.

Abe looked down sadly, "She would have come back by now, Liz. They found a needle in the autopsy room. They used sedative on her, a lot of it."

"Why? Do they want her as bait or something?" Liz asked, looking disgusted.

"I fear for worse."

"If they do use her as bait, HB will save her," the pyrokinetic reassured her friend kindly.

"Thank you; both of you. I'm sorry I can't join you," Abe motioned to his mending torso impatiently.

"It's okay. It's not your fault, what happened down there. And anyway," Liz smirked, "You can always spend your time sorting through that paperwork Manning gave us."

"Dr Manning's work will have to wait. I am planning to spend more time looking into Melissa's past. With luck, we might be able to find the location of the old laboratory that her father worked in."

"I thought you found out what happened to her," Liz's brow twitched.

"There are still many unanswered questions that need solving, and there is not much time," Abe replied automatically.

"C'mon Blue, I know there's something you're not saying," Liz sighed, "Tell me. Please, it will help."

Abe looked up with an oddly pained expression on his scaled face, "I—I suppose I am a little bit worried about… when she finds out who she really is, do you think she will want to come back? She practically grew up with Karl Kroenen, before he became involved with Rasputin and Ragna Rok. Liz… do you think she will forget us?" the ichthyoid asked solemnly.

"No," Liz smiled, "She wouldn't be the type to leave without saying goodbye to us."

"She didn't get that chance. She was taken away by force…"

"She would come back, if that's what happened to her. But I really doubt it; she's probably just in hiding somewhere in town until the storm passes…" Liz tilted her head, trying to catch Abe's adverted gaze. She placed her pale hand tight against the glass, "Blue, she will come back. HB said that when you came back wounded she wouldn't stop asking how you were."

Abe looked searchingly into his friend's dark eyes, finding the memory. He heard Hellboy's words for himself. '_Abe, trust me, she'll come back_.'

* * *

Author's Note: A little more blood and gore than I'd usually write, but I'm writing about Kroenen, after all, hehe. The plot thickens! I'll write whenever I can find time. I have really big plans for this story… you shall see… you shall all see :) Be nice, leave me a review! Or an email! 

**epalladino: **Aw, I know! Hellboy looked so sad… and you can actually hear Broom's vertebrae popping when Kroenen kills him, which is a little bit disturbing. :D They don't call him 'pops' for nothing, you know! (I can't believe I just made that joke)

**blade assassin:** :) Her name is Melissa, but I'll take that as a compliment! Maggie rules!

**theshadowcat:** Hello! The reason for my long absence was I was one of the unfortunate fan-girls in FlyingFish15's "What to do with fan-girls" story that got brutally murdered by Kroenen (but one of the best short fics I've ever read). ;) All right, I'm hurrying.

**Thrior:** Thank you:D So flattering! I feel loved!

**Afriel:** I'm really not that good at re-writing parts of the story that aren't influenced by the new character… So I just skipped that but with Hellboy finding his father dead. Poor guy, he needs some time alone to mourn.

**nightbug08:** :D Thanks for the review! Enjoy your party! Lol, "anywhoozle", love that word!

**Forensic Photographer711:** Thank you:) Glad it kept your attention! Lol, some nights I spend ages tracking down fanfics I want to read… and by then I'm too tired to read them. But not Hellboy-based fanfics! No, when there's time, there's time for Hellboy fanfiction!

**Gestalt:** Yeah, I keep getting that pointed out to me. Age difference… it can be such an annoying problem in Kroenen/OC stories… almost as bad as the fact that movie Kroenen has no lips! Do you have any idea how constricting that is? ;)


	9. Back to Germany

**Animal Instincts** **Psycho Llama**

**Disclaimer:** Mike Mignola owns all but mousy. Yes, that does mean Mike Mignola owns the world. Flee; flee for your lives!

* * *

"_**I**s this where we're going to live, Daddy?" the young girl spoke, barely audible. She squeezed her father's hand tighter, trying to hide behind him, "It feels… lifeless."_

_The girl's father smiled down at her, eyes twinkling, "That's because no body is living in it right now. But don't worry, I'm sure we will be able to brighten it up in no time. It really is a very nice house."_

_Christine held the fair-haired man's gaze for a moment before turning to look back up at the house. The house was a creamy off-white colour, not freshly painted but in a reasonable state of repair. The windows were consumed by darkness, like empty souls, as if the light could not penetrate through the glass._

"_Come on," her father called, swinging open the wrought iron gate and ushering her inside the property. Christine followed close on her father's heels through the thick grass and winding stone pathway leading up to the front door. _

_Cobwebs occupied every little corner of the entrance. The door's yawning stained-glass windows were covered in a thick webbing of grey spider-silk. Christine's father dragged his fingers over the glass panes, sweeping most of the webs away. His hand slid lower onto the brass doorknob. Brushing aside even more cobwebs, he jammed the key in the lock and swung the door open._

_Christine stepped back; the inside of the house seemed even more lifeless than the outside, "It's empty… cold…"_

"_I'll start a fire, then," her father replied absently, surveying the interior calmly._

"_Daddy?"_

"_Yes sweetie?"_

"…_This house feels like death."_

_

* * *

_

"**D**o you want a ride to the airport?" the baker offered nervously, standing in the open front door as he farewelled his new friend.

"No, he could be there… I'll walk to the airport, by myself," Melissa nodded, smiling.

"Are you sure? It's a long way to the airport…"

"It's alright. If I tire of walking, I will fly. If I tire of flying, then I will swim," the shape-shifter replied coyly.

The baker grinned, "Well, good luck to you, and thanks for telling your little rodent friends to stay away from here."

"No problem," Melissa laughed. She shuffled nervously up and down the man's hand, "Well, goodbye, I guess."

"I hope I don't see you later," the baker replied with a wink. He dipped his hand slightly and lifted it upwards, releasing the pigeon into the air with an extra burst of speed.

Melissa happily joined a flock of pigeons flying about the city as a guise until she could find a flock heading in the direction of the airport. For the first time since she had left the BPRD, she felt light-hearted, '_I can't believe it. He didn't find the baker! The baker will live! I have swept through somebody's life without leaving death and destruction in my wake!_'

She followed the flock easily, passing by squares and parks, pecking the breadcrumbs off the ground that happy little children had scattered to draw the birds towards them. Melissa looked up into the sky. The sun was shining, for once.

* * *

**A**be's webbed fingers fumbled with the specialised underwater keyboard as he tried to operate the search engine. He had the photo of young Melissa the agent had found on the screen. Using the BPRD's government-funded technology to match her face to any other photo recorded in the archives was a lengthy process, especially considering the time period he was looking at. Abe sighed disappointedly at the red text that flashed across the screen; _No matches found_.

'_I need to age the photo… wait!_' Abe brought up Melissa's video interview. After watching it through completely, twice, Abe took a still of the girl's face and entered it into the search engine.

The numbers of searched images began to rise, but the search gave no indication of how long it would take. Abe sighed, gills flaring, and set down the remote-control keyboard.

'_What are they doing to her? Is she safe? Is she even alive?_' Abe forced himself to think of something different, '_Hellboy and the others should be halfway to Russia by now. I wonder if Myers gets seasick… I should have checked that before he left_.'

A chirpy little 'ding' sounded from the computer stationed before the medi-tank. Abe turned, curious. He clicked on the first result. Rubbish. The girl did not even _resemble_ Melissa. The second and third were the same. Abe became nervous, only three photos remained. He clicked on the fourth result. It was Melissa.

'_Something isn't right with this picture…_' Abe wondered, '_And taken in—no, there must be an error_.' Abe sought more information on the photo. The date was confirmed, several times. Even in the local newspaper at the time of the event. '_Impossible…_'

Abe pressed a little red button in the corner of the medi-tank. A second later he heard feet pounding the floor and one of the nurses burst into the room. Abe smiled innocently, "Hello, Dorris. You wouldn't mind getting Agent Steel for me, would you? I have something urgent to discuss with him."

"Abe; that is an emergency button, not a service bell," the nurse growled lightly.

"Thank you Dorris, dear," Abe smiled, continuing on with his research.

'_Two more photos_…' Abe clicked on the link to the fifth result, '_No…_' then the sixth photo. Abe sighed, '_What can this mean? It's not possible… not possible. The dates…_'

"You wanted to see me, Blue?"

"Agent Steel—" Abe broke off upon touching the man's mind, "What happened? What did you find?"

Agent Steel blinked, "What? Oh, right. There have been a number of murders reported in lately, relating to that Dr Kroenen. It's hard to miss a tall guy dressed in black with knives and a gas mask."

Abe reeled in disgust, seeing second-hand the murder scenes in Steel's memories; "Rabbit paw-prints… in blood? He must have injured her…" Abe's voice was quaking.

"Hey, at least she got away," Steel offered hopefully.

"But for how long?" Abe sighed, '_She may not yet know. Or she might have rejected the thought of knowing someone like Karl Kroenen… would he kill her if she did?_' "What did you tell the victims' families?"

"That it was an isolated case and that we were arresting the offender as we spoke," Steel shrugged, "Except for the last case, the man working at the corner bakery, he didn't have any family."

Abe nodded solemnly, "All this death…"

"What did you want to talk to me about?"

"I found a photo; it may need some investigating at the archives. I do not believe that the dates match up correctly," Abe explained, "And I also have an idea of where Dr Feilding's laboratory could be located."

* * *

"**I** swear, I saw the damn thing _right there_! It was a filthy little rat! This big!" the large lady exclaimed, motioning at her open bag. Melissa stood hidden around a corner from them, coughing the last of the flowery perfume out of her lungs. German blared over the airport intercom, announcing arrivals and departures. The shape-shifter blearily wondered why it hadn't occurred to her before to escape by plane.

Germany, the place she had spent most of her life, and quite a bit of her death, residing in. The home town of her father and, unfortunately, the assassin. '_That must mean that he is following me for a reason connected with my former life… perhaps he had ties with my father? Was it his job to make sure that Dr Feilding's science project never wandered too far from home?_' Melissa shuddered at the thought.

The shape-shifter looked down at her human attire, filthy and unkempt. '_Well, at least I didn't get that much blood on my clothes_.'

"And my wallet! My wallet is gone!" the woman talking to the policeman wailed.

Melissa forced herself not to blush or look nervous, '_I shouldn't be stealing, I know, but…_' the shape-shifter shook her head, '_No point. I have to get out of here_.'

Melissa wandered over to a nearby tourist shop, flicking through the free pamphlets until she found a good map of the city.

"Paß?"

"What?" Melissa turned around to come face to face with a German officer, '_Passport?_' "I… I'm just here to meet a friend. Ich bin hier, einen Freund zu treffen."

The officer looked sceptical. Melissa winced, '_I hope my German isn't too rusty…_'

"Wer sind Sie hier zum Treffen?" the officer asked slowly.

"Who am I meeting? Um, uh… Großmutter, my Granny," the shape-shifter replied innocently. She looked over the man's shoulder, "Dort ist sie!"

The officer looked over his shoulder to where the girl had said she had seen her grandmother, but he didn't see any old ladies. Scowling, the officer turned around. The scruffy individual had disappeared. The guard whipped his walkie-talkie out of his pocket and began shouting into it in rapid German, his eyes scanning the surrounding area. The officer turned off the walkie-talkie and cursed, swatting at an annoying fly buzzing by his ear.

"Taxi!" Melissa called, jumping about on the footpath beside the road, waving her arm enthusiastically. The shape-shifter grinned ear to ear as a taxicab pulled up beside her. She hopped into the taxi, "Guten tag!"

"You from America?" the German taxi driver asked wryly.

"Ja," Melissa blushed, '_Perhaps I was a little over-zealous with the taxi-hailing_.'

"Okay. Where would you like to go?"

Melissa pulled out her map, "Städtisches Krankenhaus München, Thalkirchner Straße."

The driver turned around, concerned, "The hospital?"

Melissa looked up from the map, "Ja. I'm… visiting a friend."

* * *

"**T**urn on your locaters. Anyone sees anything…"

"Marco."

"Polo," Hellboy paused, "Just a warning, they could be using Mousy as bait, so just… just know that," Hellboy announced loudly.

"Don't worry Red, we'll get her back," Liz replied into the walkie-talkie.

"We'd better get her back; or Abe's gonna kill me," Hellboy chuckled.

Myers took up the walkie-talkie, "Are you sure about this?"

Hellboy looked about the dingy tunnels, "On a scale of one to ten: two. But… she'll take care of you, Myers. She's a tough one."

Liz tried to hide her obvious smirk.

Melissa stood on the concrete path staring up in awe at the impressive glass-panel hospital entrance-way, "Wow, they really have done the place up since I was away," Melissa paused, "…I think." '_I'm pretty sure this is the hospital I woke up in_.'

Melissa walked awkwardly into the hospital foyer and up to the main help desk. A lady at the desk looked up at her through thick-rimmed glasses, "Ja, wie kann ich Ihnen helfen?"

"Help me? Um… how do I say this," Melissa murmured to herself, trying to shake the cobwebs from her head, '_German… How does it go, again?_'

"I speak English," the desk lady smiled kindly.

"Oh, thank you. I don't know how to say this… I woke up here."

The desk lady grimaced; thinking that either she had not heard the girl correctly or she did not understand as much English as she thought she did.

"I had amnesia," Melissa specified.

"Oh, yes," the desk lady nodded, "What date did you… wake up?"

"February 13th, 1998," Melissa explained slowly, watching the lady type the information into the computer.

"And name?"

"Melissa. Well, that's my current name," the shape-shifter blushed.

"Ja, here it is," the lady pulled the medical file up on the computer.

Melissa bit her lip hesitantly, "I was wondering if the doctor that treated me, found me, is he still working here?"

"Dr Schnitt? He works here still, would you like an appointment?" the lady asked politely.

"Yes please!" Melissa grinned breathlessly, "When is the earliest I can see him?"

"…7:35pm," they both looked up at the clock on the wall, the appointment was almost three hours away.

"It's alright, I'll wait in the waiting room. Thank you," Melissa smiled, nodding.

Melissa flopped down in the plush waiting room chair. Something on the news caught her attention; a security break at the airport she had recently arrived from, '_Oh no…_'

* * *

"**H**ey Abe, there's been something on the news in Munich I think we should take a look at. Vanishing act, they caught it on security tape."

Abe opened his luminous blue eyes, blinking both sets of lids, "Hmm?"

Agent Pipes flicked on the television set up in front of Abe's tank. The old 90s television took its time warming up, the sound coming into focus faster than the picture.

"…At around seven o'clock, 9am US time, a mysterious traveller was seen appearing and then, mysteriously, disappearing in what is now being called the 'ghost girl' case." The picture showed the security footage of the German officer confronting a girl in a scruffy, torn black dress. The girl pointed over the guard's shoulder, and while his head was turned the blurry figure seemingly shrunk into nothing.

Abe ran his webbed hand gently over the surface of the tank glass; "Its Melissa, she's in Germany."

"At least she's not in Russia. We tried getting through to HB and the others to warn them, but they were already out of range," Pipes sighed.

"She's gone home to find out who she is," Abe stared at the screen, pained, "If she finds out before we can reach her…"

"Should we send out a team to contact her in Germany?"

"We are working with a skeleton crew as it is. If anything were to go wrong in Russia it would not be wise for us to be unorganised and scattered about the globe. All we can do is hope that she stays safe throughout the night. Once the eclipse is over, we will be able to focus on finding Melissa," Abe murmured reluctantly.

"Okay," Pipes nodded, "You'd better get some rest, if we're going to be all organised tonight."

Abe nodded impatiently, "Yes, yes, I will."

* * *

"**W**hat do you think they've done with Melissa?" Liz asked John, breaking the brooding silence.

John squinted as Liz shone her flashlight at him; "Probably tied her up or something to use either as bait or as a hostage."

Liz turned her flashlight away, sighing sadly, "I hope she's all right…"

"Yeah," Myers murmured, '_Then again, if she does know Kroenen…_'

"Hey, what's that?"

"What?" Myers lined his flashlight beam up with Liz's. The two saw a small flash of brown fur. Liz stepped after the rodent quickly, trying not to loose it.

"I think that's her!" Liz hissed, dragging Myers along.

"It could be a trap," the agent warned.

"Melissa?" Liz called, "It's all right, it's us, John and Liz," the pyrokinetic called, turning into a dark corner, "Oh—"

Myers ran up behind her and almost jumped himself. In the small crevasse they could see at least fifty brown mice running about in and out of holes in the wall. Myers quickly backed off, looking pale.

Liz frowned, "What's wrong?"

"Hate… rats…"

Liz rolled her eyes, '_Men_.' "Melissa? Come on, which one are you? John, come here, I'll need some help with this…"

"Can't we radio Hellboy?"

"Oh for the love of—you then, come here. I'll need you to hold some of these rats for me," Liz turned to another of the agents.

"Um…"

"Great help you two are," Liz muttered. She turned her head back the nest of swarming rats, "Hang on, Melissa, we'll come back when we've found H.B, okay?" The rats gave no response.

* * *

**M**elissa checked the clock of the waiting room, still another hour to go. The shape-shifter slumped, restless, into her seat. At least she was wearing new clothes, the tattered black dress she had been wearing since that fateful night at the bureau wasn't durable enough to live up to what Melissa had to go through to escape from her hunter. She had managed to use the rest of the money from the woman's wallet to buy dinner and a new set of clothes. Jeans, a shirt and a cord jacket, nothing fancy.

A heavy set of double doors swung open to reveal a nurse pushing an old man in a wheelchair. Melissa's dark eyes swivelled to the IV tube sticking out of the man's arm; her blood went cold.

Through her bleary vision she could just make out the shape of her left arm, a multitude of dark red tubes sprouting from her arms, neck, sides… tubes dug into every exposed part of her, tapping into her veins, drawing blood out of her and pumping it back in. Melissa's stiff body writhed in agony; every tube burned with a searing pain. The blood flowing through her felt alien and chilled, she could hear noises in her head that she knew were not really there. Animal cries of fear and anguish. Souls of a thousand frightened animals were flowing into her, driving her mad.

Melissa was uttering small gasps, forcing her lungs to breathe again. Her skin _burned_, burned and itched as if her body was convinced that the tubes were still stuck inside of her. She raised a trembling hand to wipe away the cold sweat forming on her forehead.

"Are you all right?" the desk lady asked timidly.

Melissa's head snapped about, her dizzy brain protesting painfully, "Yes," she croaked.

"You are pale."

"I know… I'm just very tired," Melissa replied softly.

The desk lady frowned thoughtfully, "Wait, I will see what I can do."

Melissa nodded slowly as to not upset her fragile head.

The lady returned five minutes later, smiling; "I shifted some appointments around. Dr Schnitt will see you now."

Melissa nodded, following the blonde lady like a lost puppy. The lady led her through the winding corridors, past a maze of wooden doors adorned with brass lettering. They came to a door labelled, 'Schnitt' and the blonde opened the door.

Inside the small office sat a short, balding man with a thick, white walrus moustache. The elderly man swivelled around on the computer desk chair to face them, "Melissa!" Dr Schnitt exclaimed in astonishment.

"Guten naben," Melissa smiled gently.

Dr Schnitt grinned back, "Hello to you too! It _has_ been a long time; how are you?"

"Good," Melissa sighed, taking a seat. The office lady shut the door behind her, "I actually came here to ask a few questions."

Schnitt nodded, "Yes?"

"Where _did_ you find me, exactly?"

Dr Schnitt hesitated; "I… we found you in the East Wing. Someone had left you there—well, actually, someone had broken into the hospital and left you there."

Melissa was pale, "I thought you said you found me lying unconscious across the road."

"No. The truth is, someone had broken through the window and left you on one of the beds wrapped in a bed sheet. You were dead, Melissa," the elderly doctor whispered gravely.

The shape-shifter nodded, eyes cast down.

Dr Schnitt sighed; "We were able to bring you back with the shock paddles. The electricity was enough to jolt your heart into action. You lived," he smiled, "Then… something strange happened to you. You changed…"

"Into an animal."

"Several animals, actually. You gave my nurse quite a fright," Dr Schnitt chuckled, "After that you fell unconscious… Tell me, can you control those changes?"

"Yes," Melissa raised a hand, letting the different DNA flow through her veins and change her hand. Claws grew, feathers sprouted and thinned into dark, glossy fur. The fur flattened and merged into scales, which faded into light peach coloured skin.

"Goodness," Schnitt coughed, "That is impressive."

Melissa looked away, blushing.

"There is something else, though. When we found you… you were covered with tubes. Thin plastic tubes running into your veins, all up your arms, legs, sides, and back… they were everywhere. We removed them after you fell unconscious and bandaged you up. You were very weak; there were serious doubts that you would survive the night."

'_The operation… the blood transfusion_,' Melissa squirmed uncomfortably on her seat, "Damn…"

"Have you been able to remember anything from your past yet?"

"Oh, yes…" an image of Abe sitting with her in the library, trying to coax her memories back to her flashed through her mind, "There have been some fragments, a lot of them very frightening."

Dr Schnitt nodded reverently.

"I remember the tubes," Melissa whispered, "They burned."

Dr Schnitt looked pained, "I am so sorry you have to go through with this…"

"I have to find out who I am," Melissa murmured, "When I left this hospital I went in search of the picture you had found of me. I found it, but…"

"You didn't find the only one."

Melissa blinked, "What?"

"There were a lot of those photos… in many different towns. I found some more information out after you left. The photos were from 'missing' posters. You had gone missing; someone had been looking for you. Your father," Dr Schnitt smiled kindly.

'_No. No, that doesn't make sense…_' Melissa paled.

"Apparently, after you had gone missing he posted those photos everywhere, hoping that someone would see them and you would be found. I found out who you were," Dr Schnitt told her in a gentle tone.

"Christine."

"Christine Fielding, daughter of Doktor Fielding."

"He's dead, isn't he?" Melissa whispered.

"Yes… how do you—"

"I can feel it. I know I'm alone," tears stung Melissa's eyes, "I know he's gone." '_Why did he put up those posters? He was the one who did this to me! Was he covering his own hide? Pretending that I had been kidnapped or had run away, playing the victim, getting sympathy while I was dying in his laboratory_.' "And I know that I'm old," she whispered.

"Older than you can imagine," Dr Schnitt replied sympathetically.

Melissa shook her head; she didn't want to imagine, "I have to find my home… see if there's anything left. Do you know where it is?"

"In Gauting. It is a little lake side village south west from here, I have the address on my computer."

"Thank you Dr Schnitt," Melissa whispered, embracing the doctor tightly, "I don't know what I would have done without you."

* * *

**M**anning trudged clumsily after Hellboy through the dank corridors, squinting in the pitiful lighting. Ahead he could hear the muffled melodies of opera music playing, "Music?"

Curious, Manning poked his head out to the side, weary of the rusty daggers aligning the walls. In the glowing yellow light he could see the macabre scene of the clockwork assassin nodding his head attentively to the opera music. Manning leaned further to the side to see around Hellboy. His hand caught on the sharp spike of a dagger jutting out from the wall, "Ouch!"

Hellboy whipped around, scowling. The red daemon turned back to Kroenen's chamber, but the Nazi was gone. Hellboy silently raised the samaritan. The two crept into the chamber.

"Hey," Manning started. Hellboy whipped around, tensed and ready to attack.

"It really went deep," Manning stated, holding up his bleeding finger.

Hellboy rolled his eyes.

Kroenen darted silently out from the blind spot of the entrance, blades drawn.

* * *

**A**be's watery gaze wandered up the clock face; "The eclipse should occur in the next few hours."

"Hmm. I wouldn't worry; I personally don't believe that there is a force on Earth capable of getting to Hellboy. They'll be fine," Pipes reassured the ichthyoid.

Abe swam up to the tank's thick glass window, "Try searching the archives for articles relating to amnesia patients in Munich."

Agent Pipes typed the information into the search engine and was flooded by results; "We might have to narrow it down."

Abe closed both sets of eyelids, trying to picture Melissa's memories in his head. Fractured images of bright white rooms, artificial lighting, a metallic clock hanging on the wall. Abe looked around inside the images, searching for clues.

"Try 1998."

"Friday the thirteenth, February. Mysterious lady discovered at the side of the road. Complete amnesia. I'll just hack into the server…" Pipes grinned, "Named 'Melissa'."

Agent Pipes almost jumped at the loud thud of Abe connecting with glass, "Open up the file."

"Sure thing, boss."

Abe read the file through agent Pipe's eyes. Pipes could hear Abe's voice in his head, '_Find Dr Schnitt. She would have gone to him. We need his phone number_.'

* * *

"**D**oktor Schnitt," the elderly man answered.

"Good evening Dr Schnitt. My name is agent Pipes, I'm with the FBI in America and I was wondering if you could answer a few questions for me."

"Certainly, what about?"

"A friend of ours is in danger and we are trying to locate her. Do you know a lady by the name of Melissa?"

Dr Schnitt smirked, "Does she have a last name?"

There was a pause on the phone line. A new, clearer voice spoke, "Dr Schnitt, the Melissa we are discussing does not know her last name, but we are working on recovering it for her. Do you know where she is?" the new voice sounded a lot more concerned.

The doctor sighed, rubbing his weary face, "She has just left."

"Where did she go?"

"Home," Dr Schnitt replied simply, "Her home, her old home."

There was a sharp intake of breath "You have to stop her. If she remembers too much too fast… With the horrors she has witnessed, Dr Schnitt, it could be too much for her."

"Melissa is a strong girl, sir. She wants to know who she is and what happened to her. My only regret is that she went alone," Schnitt scowled, "For some reason, she greatly fears a person that is stalking her…"

"We know who that is. My colleagues are working on that problem as we speak," Abe smiled.

* * *

**H**ellboy fended off Kroenen's blows with strong, deliberate blocks; fragments of red stone chipping away with every blow of Kroenen's blades. Kroenen brought his blades around, trying to find a weak spot. The assassin swung both blades together to block, Hellboy grabbed the baton swords, "You killed my father, your ass is _mine_."

Through the dirty, grimy lenses of his mask, Kroenen only saw a brief flash of red before his head was jolted backwards with the force of Hellboy's fist, repeatedly. The metal mask buckled under the blows; the dents stabbing into Kroenen's already scarred face. Hellboy's stone fist flew at the Nazi assassin, catching him full in the face and throwing him backwards. The wall crashed into his back and heavy glass shards rained down on his shoulders.

"Where's Mousy, pin-head?"

Once the planet had stopped spinning, Kroenen noted with a vengeance where the red daemon was standing. The assassin cackled dryly, reaching behind his back for the pulley system.

Hellboy sneered, "What are you laughing at you Nazi son of a bit—" the air rushed out of his lungs as the floor dropped out from under him. His arm waved around in space until it snagged on the dangling ropes. Hellboy caught himself, looking down to see the base of the octagonal pit sprout glittering knives, tearing through the unfortunate chair and gramophone that had fallen in.

Manning pulled himself over the edge of the pit, having narrowly avoided falling completely in.

Kroenen wandered leisurely up to the side of the pit, swinging his baton swords in the air almost tauntingly near the lone rope suspending Hellboy from the pit of knives. He knew his Lord did not wish for the demon to be killed, but hanging by a thread over a mass of deadly blades did put the red ape in his place. Nobody owned Karl Ruprecht Kroenen's ass.

Something hard struck Kroenen's face; he looked over at the man that had accompanied Hellboy. Rasputin may have instructed Kroenen to leave Hellboy alive, but that was not the case for any of the demon's companions.

Kroenen had dropped his guard for too long. Hellboy threw a coil of rope at the distracted Nazi, hooking him around the neck, and pulled. Kroenen drove his blades into the wooden floor to stop himself from falling in, sinking to his knees. Hellboy used the clockwork Nazi as leverage to pull himself out of the pit. Hellboy grabbed hold of the assassin's leg and flipped him over, driving him into the pit of daggers.

Kroenen fell backwards onto the knives, gravity impaling him. One blade pierced his middle, another his left knee and another other his arm. Dust pooled around the wounds.

Kroenen heard something heavy moving and his head darted skywards to see that red ape rolling one of the larger gears over to the side of the pit. If Kroenen still had his eyelids, his eyes would have widened substantially.

Hellboy leaned casually against the gear, both of them knowing exactly where the daemon was planning to throw it. "Tell me where Mousy is. Melissa."

Kroenen looked blankly up at him, '_He lost that black-haired girl already? …I was sure Rasputin called her something different…_'

"Don't look at me like that. Where is she," Hellboy growled, "Melissa. _Christine_."

"Who's Christine?" Manning frowned.

"Melissa's real name."

"Ah."

Hellboy looked back down at the stuck Nazi. He couldn't really tell if Kroenen was looking more surprised than he was previously or not. "I'm giving you to the count of ten to tell me where she is, pin-head."

Kroenen did not respond, but he knew where she was. If she had not returned to the bureau already, then there really was only one other place she would go. Germany. And he knew exactly where.

"Ten," Hellboy grunted. He hefted the gear up onto his shoulders and chucked it down into the pit, atop the screeching assassin.

* * *

**A/N**: Liked the long chapter? Don't worry, there's plenty more where that came from –taps head- just have to extract it, first. The plot thickens! What has Abe so terribly worried? Will Myers ever get over his fear of rodents? What will Melissa find at her old home? Stay tuned for the next episode of _Animal Instincts!_

Cheesy? My job.

**Forensic Photographer711:** Yeah, FFN can be such a great source of entertainment! It's just sad when the category you're looking at is pretty empty… especially with the pairing you're interested in, lol. :D I always seem to pick the crazy couples! I agree, those Nazis were evil little buggers. Hehe, Abe's getting a little attached! Thank you for your long review!

**boogalaga:** Exactly! Which sets the scene for memories transferred by the experiment. Hehe, you have got to wonder if she's got male genes in there. Man, that's weird. Thank you for the review, hope you like the update!

**Haku:** Oops! I was wondering how to spell that word… and I was offline at the time so I couldn't check. I can never get those fiddly little occult names right! Yeah, poor Kroenen… once upon a time he was probably just a cute little kid at one time. Aw:) Thanks for the review!

**theshadowcat:** ;) I do what I need to do to write my little character into the script, tee-hee. Thank you for the kind words!

**blade assin:** Hey, hey, dun worry about it:) I was very much flattered, lol. Names are hard, and they both start with M, lol. Thanks for the reviews! It's you guys that keep me going!

**Thrior:** Wait no longer! Well, uh, for that chapter up there that you've just read. Hoped you liked it, thanks for the review!

**epalladino:** Okay, now I'm sorry I didn't write the time-frames in or the time-difference, but apart from Hellboy talking to Abe about Mousy (It could possibly work, if you think about it) There are possible time gaps to slot each scene into with out screwing the movie up too badly. I stopped myself short of drawing up a calender for all these dates! And there are going to be even more dates in the coming chapters! It's absolute madness! At least after this chapter the movie is over, so I can mess with the characters as much as I like, Hehehe. Thanks for the review!

**ToTaKeKe13:** Thank you for the favourites! Good to see more and more people coming on to Deviant Art! We've got quite a little community going on there. Aw, I wish Deviant Art would start Deviant Fan Fiction or something similar. It would be so great to see a Devious layout to the fanfiction site… where you can actually reply to the reviews and so forth! Woots for your review! Thank you!

**Gestalt:** Another Deviant! (Lol, I wonder how many people here are on Deviant Art!) Yep, she's in Germany! Llama's Germany where nearly everyone is sprecken English so most of the readers can understand what they say! (And so I don't have to do Google Translator for every sentence) And I used maps and did a little research to get my German places right! Lol, I forgot Kroenen was born in Munich! Ah well, this little village is just on the outskirts! Danke for the review, Gestalt!

**Lucy:** Ehehehe… Chasing a Shooting Star… um, I'm working on it! Just a little story block with the characters, I'll try and sort it out without making Klorel to seem too OOC. Aliens, go fig. Thank you for the compliments!

**FlyingFish15:** Oh, the autopsy room was the most fun to write! Went nuts with my OC, got to inject a little humour into the story (har-har) But it's pretty hard to try and tell someone that you grew up with them when you don't have lips and they keep getting away, but you never know ;) Aw, I loved the fangirls fic! Movie Kroenen's lack of lips is his biggest downfall. It really does cut any possible romance short; it's so frustrating! It's hard enough finding actual Kroenen/OC romances without having to worry about the fact that he's missing a lot of his face! Hehe, what's worse is that the autopsy dummy was missing other vital parts, too. But I'm sure that was just budget restraints. They can't take away all my fun!


	10. Memory

**Animal Instincts** **Psycho Llama**

**Disclaimer:** Mike Mignola owns all but mousy. Yes, that does mean Mike Mignola owns the world. Flee; flee for your lives!

* * *

**K**roenen waited until all noises of human activity had completely stilled in the depths of Rasputin's mausoleum before going to work on himself. Struggling to move his limbs under the weight of the massive gear, he managed to bring his blade down to his side. His free arm pushed upwards against the gear while his other arm sought just enough movement to begin slicing through his ropy abdomen. Sand-like blood poured out from the wound, but Kroenen paid it no heed, it could all be replaced.

Kroenen slid off the knife, wrenching his arm free from another steel blade while continuing to push up against the gear. The gear began to move, almost painfully slowly, off of the bleeding assassin. Kroenen sat up, freeing one arm to wind himself up again. He sighed inwardly at the feeling of the dust in his veins running anew. With renewed vigour Kroenen forced the gear off him and slid out from under it.

Kroenen pulled himself up the side of the octagonal pit, sand still pouring from his side. His metallic hand ran along the surface of his damaged mask until he found the latches at the side. He wrenched off the broken mask in favour of a new one.

'_Munich, Germany. Munich, Germany_,' if Kroenen had blood, it would have been boiling.

* * *

**T**he once creamy walls of the house had been somehow painted a stark white colour that burned Melissa's amber eyes. She sat perched on the sidewalk, watching the old house carefully. There was a family living within it, Melissa noted, '_After everything that has happened in that house, there are people still living there, oblivious to its past. Of me, of what I am, what I was…_' something at the back of Melissa's memory twinged. The shape-shifter had been watching the house for some days now, watching to see when the house would be empty long enough for her to search for any trace of her or her father inside of the house. '_Or father's laboratory…_'

Melissa slid up from her perch and jumped the wrought iron fence. The back door slammed and the last of the family members bustled out of the house, the mother herding the children into the family car above shouts and demands from the kids. The little grey cat slid past them, unnoticed.

Melissa instinctively headed in the direction of the closest tree, easily scaling the rough trunk and soaring up through the branches. Slight memories of climbing awkwardly up the tree as a human surfaced and faded as she went.

The smoky-grey cat leapt off the branch and onto the porch roof. Melissa's face blanched noticeably at the state of the guttering, but she continued. The first two windows she came across had been shut and bolted, but not the third. Melissa got up on her hind legs and used her little cat paws to wrench the window open, but only managed a small gap. '_Life never gives me a beak_.' Melissa wedged her head in the gap, pushing forwards.

The cat slid through with a 'pop' as her head squeezed through. "Ow!" Melissa rolled onto the floor, once again human. She looked about, speechless. '_My old room…_' the image in her mind of her old room superimposed itself onto reality; Melissa shook her head to clear it. The only things that had survived all the years were the walk-in closet and the old mirror, now antique.

_Christine sat on the edge of her thin bed, scribbling an erratic entry into her diary_. Melissa focused closer on her former self in her mind's eye; _Christine was stifling tears as she wrote_. Melissa searched her memory for something else, '_Where did you keep the diary?_'

_Christine rose from the bed, clutching the diary close to her chest_. Melissa followed her actions. _Christine ran a hand over the wooden panel wall, her nails digging into a slight crack between two boards_. Melissa ran her hand over the wallpaper, knowing what was behind it. Without hesitating Melissa tore the happy-hearts wallpaper from the wall, aching to reach her diary.

Bare plaster stared back at her. _Christine was already hiding the diary in the cavity inside of the wall_; Melissa brought up an arm, shifting it into a horse hoof, and rammed it into the plaster wall. It took several blows to create a hole large enough for Melissa to squeeze an arm in_, 'If only I had Hellboy's DNA…_'

Melissa's spindly arm stretched out into the cavity, her splayed fingers searching for the book. All she felt was empty space and wooden walls. Whining, Melissa stretched her fingers deeper. The tips of her fingers brushed against the cover of the diary. Melissa pushed herself against the wall, cramming more of her arm into the cavity to reach the book. She grabbed the diary and at once yanked it out, fragments of plaster scattering across the once clean carpet.

Melissa handled the diary as if it were made of glass, and worth a whole lot more. She gingerly flicked through the yellowing, spongy pages, marvelling at the grace of her former self's handwriting. Two-thirds through the book, the writing ran out. Melissa skipped backwards through the blank pages to the beginning of the last entry.

"Seven slash six," Melissa murmured, skimming through the erratic entry and picking out fragment, '7/6: _I know I have to tell him… I'm worried; what if he tries to kill me… I pray he will understand… I don't want him to hate me, but I must tell him. I will tell him._'

"Tell who?" Melissa demanded, turning the page. She couldn't find any corresponding memory. In reply, several old letters slipped from the aged pages of the diary and scattered on the ground.

'_I will tell him. I will go to Munich and I will tell him. I doubt I will ever come back_.'

Melissa traced her fingers over her own signature, '_Christine_.' "I must have left. Then… I must have found my father, in the laboratory… but who was I going to see?" Melissa growled impatiently. She bent down, picking up the letters, '_Father? …The blue eyed boy?_'

The girl jumped at the sound of someone down on the first floor knocking something over, '_Back already?_' Melissa's heart raced. She darted over to the wall-length closet, careful not to make a noise, and hid inside. Letters and diary still clutched in her hands, Melissa felt around the low ceiling of the closet for the opening to the attic. She found the square 'lid' and pushed it upwards and slid the square of ceiling out of the way. The noises downstairs were getting closer to the staircase. Melissa gently placed the diary and letters on the floor above her head before quickly shifting into a crow to fly up into the attic. She landed on the attic floor and morphed back to herself.

She silently placed the slab of wood back the indent in the attic floor; '_They must have left something behind… or something._' Melissa considered with some annoyance.

Without any windows, the attic was pitch-black. Melissa's human eyes took longer to adjust than if she had exchanged them for night-vision eyes, but she didn't feel like losing the link to her former, completely human self.

Melissa wondered if she was seeing things in the dark, but finally concluded that there were several stacks of boxes surrounding her in the cramped attic. Almost set out like a cardboard city of skyscrapers, little paths and 'roads' wound in-between the stacks.

The shape-shifter habitually moved away from the entrance of her hide-away, walking over to the far edge of the attic and kneeling down before one of the boxes. Curiously, she opened the box. '_Oh my…_' Melissa eagerly dove her hands into the box to pull out its contents. Out of all of the stuffed toy animals, Melissa picked out what had been her favourite; a ragged teddy bear her mother had given to her when she was a child. The shape-shifter ran her hands over the coarse fabric, marvelling at the familiar texture. '_My toys… my things. These are my things_.' Melissa turned to another box, opening that too, '_And father's things…_' she mused in disgust at the dusty medical novels.

Melissa sat back down on the wooden floor, taking a moment to reflect on her good fortune. Dizzy with happiness, the shape-shifter snatched up the letters once again. They had already been opened, and the pages were dog-eared. Melissa scanned the envelopes curiously. They all bore German stamps of 'return to sender'. The sender, she found, was Kroenen. Melissa's eyes widened, '_This must be why he is after me… An affiliation, or perhaps it was a family matter of his. Family assassin, perhaps?_' the shape-shifter speculated.

She opened the first letter, the oldest, and pulled out the letter. She scanned it briefly. Some sort of personal note from Kroenen to Christine about the university he was at, '_With all my affection, Karl Kroenen_,' signed the bottom of the note. Melissa felt her stomach lurch, '_Oh God…_'

She took out the next letter… more or less a copy of the first, except with a minor irritation with the post accidentally returning his mail. The third, much the same to the other two, claiming that he would go see the post company if any more of his letters were returned.

Melissa's trembling hands were flurrying to get the letters out faster.

The fourth was different; it enclosed a piece of paper different to the rest: a note from Christine, instructing not to write to her any more, '_I don't remember writing this_,' Melissa thought distractedly. Written in a different handwriting was a simple '_why?_'

"Oh great," Melissa muttered, feeling as if she were about to vomit, "An epic love story."

The other letters from Kroenen kept asking Christine why she was ignoring him. Confusion turned to sadness, and then the threats started. Accusations, pleas, threats, promises…

'_Is your father keeping you from replying to my letters?_' '_Did the others put you up to this?_' '_You were all I had…_' '_If you hate me so much, why not tell me? Why do you hide from me?_' '_I will come back and see you personally if you continue to refuse my letters_.'

Melissa picked up the final letter, almost afraid to open it.

'_I will find you_.'

"No!" Melissa choked out in horror. Memory fragments swam about in Melissa's mind like leaves caught in a hailstorm. Below her she heard another noise. Melissa's sanity was stretched to the breaking point connecting the blue-eyed boy from her dreams, the friend she had grown up with and probably even loved, to the un-dead assassin that had chased her to death's doorstop on more than one occasion. Melissa cracked the diary open again; the shape-shifter's now blood-shot eyes darted to the date of the last entry as she stared in disbelief. 1918. '_I'm as old as that un-dead, un-dying clockwork Nazi?_'

The sound of wood scraping on wood interrupted her speeding train of thought. Someone had opened the hatch leading from the attic to the closet in Melissa's old room. Melissa froze. Light shone up from the hole in the attic floor, silhouetting the head and shoulders that shot upwards. The silhouette of a hairless shape of a head; twin disks of glass glinted in the dim light. Melissa screamed.

"Melissa?" a torch flickered on, shining in her eyes. The torch was pointed back at the owner, Abe's smiling blue face shone in the yellow torchlight; "It's just us."

Melissa's heart felt like it was beating hard enough to break one of her ribs, "Abe?"

"Hello," Abe waved.

Melissa frowned, "What are you doing in Germany?"

"We came here looking for you. We were lonely at the bureau. Are you all right?" Abe asked tenderly.

Melissa slowly shook her head, "No."

Abe ducked his head down to the floor below, "Pipes, give me a boost, would you?"

"One fish, going up."

Abe clambered up into the attic, "Would you be able to find us some light sticks, Pipes? And could you get one of the other agents to fix that hole in the wall before the owner of this house comes home?"

"Alright. I'll leave you a ladder."

"Thank you Pipes," Abe replied, walking over to Melissa. He found a small space beside Melissa on the ground and sat, cross-legged, trying to ignore the thick layer of dust that clung to his damp skin. Melissa remained silent, waiting for Abe to make the first move.

"I am sorry we did not arrive sooner, Melissa," Abe started, "I… felt the realisation hit you, moments ago. Please forgive our lateness."

"It's okay," Melissa murmured.

"We found out about who you were only after the—the incident at the bureau. We thought they had taken you…"

"No, no. They didn't," Melissa shook her head, "I'm sorry about what happened to Professor Broom, I really am—"

"Professor Broom's murder was a tragedy, but it was Rasputin's work, not yours. Nobody blames you for what happened, not even Hellboy," Abe explained in soothing tones.

"I grew up with him!" Melissa hissed, "He was the boy with the blue eyes. I grew up with him, here, in 1918, I wrote this diary… And he sent me letters saying he was going to find me. I stopped talking to him, I think… I can't remember much closer to these dates…"

Abe took her hand in his, as a comforting gesture, "It's all right—you don't have to worry about running from him any more."

Melissa stilled, "Why?"

Abe grimaced, "When Hellboy was confronting Rasputin in Russia… he and Kroenen came into conflict." It was too dark for Abe to see the mortification spreading across Melissa's features, and he was politely not monitoring the shape-shifter's thoughts as he spoke, "Kroenen lost."

"He—Hellboy killed him?" Melissa's voice was shaky.

"Yes. Red thought that Kroenen was holding you prisoner there. It was only after he came out of the mausoleum that we were able to radio him the information that you had been seen in Germany—"

"Did Hellboy know, a-about Kroenen and me?"

"Yes, we both did. We also told agent Myers, but that was all."

"And you still killed him?" Melissa whispered.

Abe's head turned sharply at the sudden change of direction, "Well, yes. Melissa, Kroenen was trying to murder you. He has killed countless others in his extended life span—"

"Yes, I know, but…" Melissa stuttered, lost for words, "I knew him, and I didn't know… I didn't get a chance to tell him that I remembered. I've remembered, I know who he is," Melissa choked on tears, "God, I think I _loved_ him…"

"Would someone that loves you hunt you down and try to kill you?" Abe asked with strained patience.

"But—he never actually tried to _kill_ me. He could have done so easily… he never has. Every time, he was just trying to debilitate me—probably to tell me who he was—but I always ran away. He never got enough time to tell me. I kept running away from him and he kept chasing me. He just wanted to tell me… God, what if he never knew I had amnesia? What if he thinks I'm still like these letters? That I don't want to talk to him…" Melissa sobbed, "Karl…" she cried, as she had so many times before.

Abe held her shaking frame gently, waiting for her to finish mourning.

"You killed him. You _knew_ and you _killed_ him!" Melissa hissed.

"Hellboy had to do it. For the good of man-kind," Abe replied stiffly.

"He's dead… but he can't die," Melissa paused, "But…" a dull clatter at the other end of the attic sounded as a couple of light sticks were thrown up to light the darkness.

"Rasputin is dead; that could very well mean that whatever unearthly force that kept Kroenen alive is dead also."

Melissa squeezed her eyes shut; "He was just trying to tell me he loved me…"

"Melissa, he was trying to kill you," Abe reminded her softly.

"He wasn't. I know he wasn't…" Melissa touched where her heart was, "I know it, in here. Where I knew my father was dead, my mother was dead… that I am old and that I once loved a boy with bright blue eyes."

"Come back to the bureau, Melissa," Abe pleaded, "Please."

"No, I can't."

"No one blames you for what happened on that night—"

"No," Melissa repeated, "I'm not leaving Germany. This is my home. Everything I have is gone, now. Even Karl," she glowered.

"Not everything is gone," Abe reasoned, "You still have us. Hellboy, John, Liz… me."

Melissa's eyes darkened, "You all know what he meant to me—"

"We will not judge you, Melissa," Abe insisted, "You might have grown up with a nice, normal, blue-eyed boy, but this Karl Kroenen has become someone very different since you… disappeared."

"I disappeared to find Karl, actually. I had to tell him something—I can't remember. I must have found father's laboratory. I remember going there. That is the last memory I have of the _before_."

"Please, come back with us; if not to the bureau, then to Munich. We are staying in a hotel there while we are investigating something; you can stay there with us. Hellboy, Agent Myers and Liz will be meeting us there also."

"I thought you came here looking for me."

"We are also investigating the location of your fathers laboratory, in case there is anything of paranormal quality still in there. You don't have to come if you would rather not."

Melissa gave the fish-man a sharp glance, "…I'll stay at the hotel for the night, then I'll come back here," she motioned to the boxes around them; "I have to get rid of all this junk."

Abe nodded, "Very well. Come on, the garbage truck is waiting outside."

Melissa let him pull her up, trudging gloomily along behind the ichthyoid; "How did you find out who I was?"

"We found some early photos of you, in the archives," Abe smiled, climbing backward down the ladder Pipes had set up for them; "There was a school photo of you and Karl Kroenen that we found. Would you like to see it?"

"Alright."

Abe fished the print-out out of a pouch on his side, "Here."

Melissa took the paper, handling it carefully. They both looked so young… she doubted anyone could have picked out that happy little boy as a future surgically addicted assassin with a heart of clockwork, "I remember that day; it was sunny…"

"Glad to see your memory is returning to you," Abe smiled.

"Most of it. I flicked through my diary earlier; I can only recall a few of the entries written near the beginning, then nothing, just father shooting me with a sedative."

"Speaking of sedative; they found an empty emergency sedative needle in the library. What happened?" Abe asked softly.

"I went into the autopsy room to see Kroenen. I almost thought he really _was_ dead. I was wrong. I turned my back on him and felt a needle sink into my neck. When I woke up I was lying on the autopsy table… I was alone so I went to find Hellboy. Then I saw professor Broom, and Kroenen," Melissa murmured, "Hellboy was gone… I flew out the same way he had." Melissa turned to Abe, lowering her voice to a harsh whisper, "Kroenen could have killed me then, but he didn't."

"He was probably too busy following Rasputin's orders—"

"He had his knives. One swing and a decapitation would be a lot faster that injecting me with sedative and laying me on the autopsy table."

"The wall's done," one of the agents called.

"Thank you," Abe smiled, then he turned back to Melissa; "We will talk about this with Hellboy, Melissa. Until then, you should eat and then get some rest."

Melissa looked down at the diary and letters she held, "Food, rest, Hellboy and then I come back here," the shape-shifter insisted.

Abe nodded once, "If you so wish."

* * *

**T**he phone was ringing again. Dr Schnitt sighed in fatigue and picked up the receiver; "Doktor Schnitt."

The doctor listened to the deep voice of the person on the other end, "…Yes. Yes, she is here," Schnitt wheeled himself over to the calender, "She came to the hospital a few days ago. You are not the first to inquire after her either—Oh, you know him? Hmm, well, take care of them, then. Thank you. Auf Wiedersehen."

* * *

"**W**hen will Hellboy be here?" Melissa asked, sitting on the edge of the spa bath that Abe was situated in. Abe was lying on his back, submerged in the salty water with his legs crossed.

The fish-man tilted his head to the side, speaking to her mind, '_In a few hours. They are probably stuck somewhere in customs negotiating with the German government. Did you enjoy dinner?_'

"Mm-hmm. I missed German food…"

'_Do you… remember ever having any brothers or sisters?_'

The question caught Melissa off-guard, "What? No, I was an only child, like my parents." Abe sank into deeper thought. Melissa leaned over the edge of the small pool, "Why do you ask?"

'_I was curious, that's all. I couldn't find any memories of siblings in your mind, I thought if you had any that those words might jog your memory._'

"Oh…"

'_We are going to where we think your father's old laboratory was located tomorrow. Alter Südfriedhof. We think it is beneath the old cemetery there_.'

"That's—that's over the road from the hospital," Melissa frowned. '_I must have been in Munich when I found the laboratory. Why would I be in Munich?_'

'_To tell Karl Kroenen something?_'

'_I wonder what_.'

'_Do you know when the letters were sent?_'

Melissa got up from the side of the spa bath and walked across the short hotel suite hallway to her little bedroom and picked up the letters from her bedside table. She flipped the first letter open as she walked back to the bathroom.

"The first one is dated around 1916… that was during the Great War…" the girl murmured.

'_And after you disappeared_,' Abe added silently.

'_No wonder I couldn't return the letters_.'

'_Then who wrote that note telling Kroenen not to write back to you?_'

Melissa took the letter out of its envelope, "I don't remember writing this… and it's not my handwriting, either. It's father's writing."

'_That makes sense_.'

"He must have thought that I had left him or something…"

'_Do not worry about that. Get some rest before Hellboy and the others arrive, you look like you need it_.'

"Wake me as soon as Hellboy arrives, okay?" Melissa asked, leaning over the spa pool to look Abe in the eyes. Abe smiled pleasantly and nodded. Melissa smiled back, blush creeping over her cheeks, "I'll see you when Hellboy gets here."

'_Sleep well_.'

'_You too_.'

* * *

**A/N**: Hello everyone! Apologies for the lateness of this update, I was in Queenstown over the winter holidays going skiing with my Dad and little sister. : ) I only had one crash. Yay!

Right, time for the reviews: D

**epalladino:** You're welcome, anytime: D hope you have/had fun singing! Sounds like great fun!

**ToTaKeKe13:** Thanks! Lol, I sure am enjoying the reviews! It's so great and encouraging to get feedback, especially on help how to avoid making a Mary-Sue, which I'm having the most trouble with.

**FlyingFish15:** Aw, glad you liked it! And I couldn't have just left Kroenen under that horrible gear, that would make the ending terribly boring ; ) and I have the whole thing planned! Tea-hee! I've seen some Kroenen/OC stories around… DarkCloudRider is writing one, I think. YOU almost did one! Which I can't wait to read the ending! EVIL CLIFF-HANGER! ; ) hehe, I've thought about that! Shh! Don't give away the ending! (insane giggling)

**theshadowcat:** Hehe, hope you enjoyed lunch! Thank you for the review: D

**Roofoot:** EXACTLY! I'm grinning; thank you so much for noticing that little part. I was seriously debating leaving that in or not. Decided to leave it in for a laugh. Nobody owns Kroenen's ass. Mwuhahaha. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

**Thrior:** : P Would I leave Kroenen all alone in some cold, smelly mausoleum? (Rasputin: It is not smelly! I cleaned it!) Of courses not! Poor Kroenen… I began this chapter by bringing him back! Thanks for the review; glad you liked the rest of it.

**Scorponis:** Yes, tea shall rule us all. If you want spoilers, just ask.

**Roofoot:** Hello again! Ja, bring it on! It's twisted as pie!

**boogalaga:** Hmm. Okay, so you know how when Mousy changes she always has her clothes and she never loses them and she can hide items she's carrying at will also? It's all under this cloaking theory that the animal identities are just an over-layer over her actual DNA (her DNA being superior), like some sort of disguise. Her voice, sight, personality, etc all remain the same when she is an animal (otherwise she would have gone bush a long time ago, lol). This also applies to _what_ she is. The disguise moulds itself around her age and the fact that she is female, which keeps it a whole lot simpler than her suddenly being a guy in every second animal. Hope that makes sense, and I hoped you enjoyed the rant: D Thanks for reviewing!

**BLADE ASSASSIN:** PLEASE MENTION SOMETHING ABOUT KROENEN'S ASS AND I WILL GLADLY UPDATE FASTER! Lol : ) thanks for the review.


	11. Alter Südfriedhof

**Animal Instincts**

_**Psycho Llama**_

**Disclaimer:** Mike Mignola owns all but mousy. Yes, that does mean Mike Mignola owns the world. Flee; flee for your lives!

* * *

**A**be waited in the kitchen of the unit by the door, carefully assembling his dry-suit gear and keeping Melissa in deep sleep with the other part of his mind. He could hear the agents bringing Hellboy up in the lift, running about and making sure no one had so much as a chance to look at the daemon. Hellboy's resonating voice was hardly muffled by the heavy walls separating them.

Abe knew he needed time to talk to Hellboy before Melissa started on him.

'_Red, keep it down, Melissa is trying to sleep in the other room_,' Abe projected sharply into Hellboy's mind as the demon-hunter reached for the doorknob. Hellboy turned the knob with all the silence he could muster, motioning for everyone following him to keep the noise minimal also.

The other agents went about moving luggage into different rooms on the same floor; Liz and Myers followed Hellboy into Abe's suite.

"She alright?" Hellboy murmured softly.

"She is fine. Are you three?" Abe inquired with concern, seeing the state of Hellboy's roughly shaved horns.

"Peachy," Hellboy answered, "I'm almost getting bored; saving the Earth every other damn week."

"We thought Ms… Melissa was somewhere in the mausoleum. Spent hours looking for her," Myers sighed.

"What happened to her?" Liz asked, walking over to stand beside Hellboy.

"Kroenen did stab her with the sedative, but she managed to escape unscathed."

Hellboy frowned, "Drugged up?"

"No. She woke up after the sedative had worn off, then escaped," Abe replied, tactfully leaving out how Melissa had failed to find Hellboy at the time.

"What is she doing in Germany, anyway?" Myers questioned, looking around the expensive suite.

"Looking for her family, her past," Abe switched his attention to Hellboy, "She discovered who she was… and who Kroenen was to her," the two exchanged meaningful looks.

Liz looked between the two sceptically, "What do you mean, '_who Kroenen was to her'_?"

"You didn't tell her?"

"I was planning to…" Hellboy trailed off.

"He told me," Myers added, a bit unwisely.

"Tell me," Liz ordered; mock-whacking Hellboy on the arm.

"Mousy grew up with the Pin-head."

"What?"

"Melissa and Karl Kroenen both attended the same schools as children, and were consequently quite good friends. When Melissa's father, the mad Nazi scientist, turned Melissa into what she is now, he put her in stasis. Over the years Melissa did not age a year until she somehow escaped the laboratory and ended up in the hospital with complete amnesia."

"That's just wrong. How could you operate on your own daughter?"

"Nazi."

"Figures."

"Red, Melissa wanted to be told the moment you arrived. When she found out about who Kroenen was, it—it made finding out that you had just ended his life a… a little hard."

Hellboy nodded, "I'll go talk to her."

"And after you have finished talking—" Abe turned his respirator on, "We have to go to the cemetery and uncover an old Nazi scientist's secret laboratory, which will be filled with unnamed horrors and gore, and find out if there is any more information relating to Melissa down there."

"Great," Hellboy muttered, "_More_ Nazis."

* * *

'**_M_**_elissa?_'

'_Uh… Abe?_'

Abe smiled slightly at the adorably fuzzy state of the shape-shifter's mind, '_Hellboy just arrived. I have sent him in to talk to you_.'

Melissa's mind buzzed without focus, then settled, '_I don't want to see him_.'

Abe's arm shot out, barring Hellboy from moving further into the hotel unit. The ichthyoid bent closer to Hellboy to whisper; "She doesn't want to see you."

"I thought you just said she wanted to talk. What gives?"

Abe shrugged, "I don't know. She isn't thinking clearly."

Hellboy took his unlit cigar from his mouth and hissed, "What do you mean she isn't thinking clearly? Wait a minute… She actually _liked_ that Nazi pin-head?"

Abe's expression gave it all away; "She is trying to avoid you, but yes, she did present certain… very clear implications… when we were up in what used to be her attic… of, um, a certain concern relating to Kroenen's… most recent death."

"You mean when I nailed him with that giant gear?" Hellboy growled. The odd lighting of the room illuminating his yellow eyes and making him look even more imposing.

Abe did not notice. He leaned backwards, rubbing his chin thoughtfully; "Do you really think he is dead?"

"If not, I don't see him getting out of that pit any time soon… How could Mousy give a damn whether he died or not after what he did to her?"

"A sudden onslaught of memories and past emotions could have altered her perspective slightly—for the moment," Abe added hastily at Hellboy's apprehensive look.

"Maybe they were in love," Liz pointed out from the other side of the room, causing the two to look at her. Liz shrugged, "It happens."

"It couldn't have," Abe replied indignantly, "He was a—oh."

"Oh?" Hellboy echoed with a hint of concern, "_Oh_-oh?"

"No, no. I just need to do more research," Abe smiled, a hand resting on the photos he and Pipes had found earlier.

"First Mousy, then evil Nazi laboratory, then research," Hellboy announced. He turned down the corridor and proceeded to Melissa's temporary room. Hellboy knocked loudly on the wooden door with his 'normal' hand, which still caused the door to shake and buckle.

The hotel unit fell silent. The sound of someone slipping off a bed and walking quietly to the door could just be heard. Melissa opened the door, coming face to face with Hellboy's large frame. Liz, Myers and Abe were in the lounge area not a few steps away, considering the size of the small unit, all looking slightly uncomfortable.

"You wanted to see me?" Melissa asked timidly.

"You wanted to see me," Hellboy stated.

"Oh."

"About Pin-head."

"Who?"

"Kroenen," Hellboy grated the name out, as if it were something foul lodged between his teeth.

Melissa blinked; "I knew him."

"I knew that."

"…You killed him," Melissa murmured, lowering her gaze to the carpet.

"He killed my father."

"He was the only one I had left…"

Hellboy made a surprised grunting sound, motioning to himself and the other three, "We're right here."

"Yes, but he's the only one from the _before_."

"Mousy; we're at now, now. The before doesn't matter, it's good that you can remember it, but you've got to move on," Hellboy explained with punctuating, sweeping hand gestures.

'_That was beautiful, Red_,' Abe projected mockingly, barely concealing a chuckle.

"Shut up; I'm not the word-guy here," Hellboy scowled over his shoulder.

"Word-_smith_."

"Shh!" Hellboy waved him off. He turned back to Melissa; "You okay?"

Melissa stared at the daemon's red face for a long while, her own pale features blank. She looked away, "Yeah."

"Good. Now, let's go find your Dad's old place."

* * *

"**A**lter Südfriedhof," Hellboy sighed, "Why oh why do they always build their secret laboratories in the middle of cemeteries?"

"Easy access to extra bodies?" Abe suggested, a little too coolly.

"There wouldn't have been that many good bodies around here. Alter Südfriedhof was where they buried many of the deceased during the plague," Melissa quipped.

"Hey, how 'bout you two go and find that lab and Melissa, John and I will keep wandering through the cemetery… in case we find anything interesting," Liz suggested.

"I'm not incapable of managing—" Melissa started hotly.

"Mousy, you're with Liz and Myers. You three split up and search the grounds for anything… interesting," Hellboy finished lamely.

"And next time," Manning added in a dead-pan, "Maybe I can give the orders. For once."

"Maybe, maybe," Hellboy smirked cheerfully.

Melissa grumbled to herself, dejectedly walking down the path she was assigned to explore and sending a barrage of negative thoughts in Abe's direction.

Abe and Hellboy continued walking in the other direction to the three that had split off to search the grounds, agents following to help. Abe led the way confidently, having already memorised the route to the opening of the laboratory.

"It should be obvious how we enter. The last time it was opened had to have only been a few years ago, when Melissa escaped. …I wonder why it released her then," Abe mused aloud.

"Things rust, batteries run out—"

"But Dr Schnitt told Melissa that someone had broken in and deposited her body in the hospital, which means that someone had already found her. They either found her inside of the laboratory or close to it."

"Is that it?"

Abe turned abruptly; "Oh yes, there it is."

The two, Manning and a handful of other agents still catching up, stood before a low-set family tomb. The build was cheap, simple and made of concrete. No fancy engravings or gold trimmings, simply the family name set boldly into the front of the tomb above the wrought-iron doors, which had been recently re-sealed with a new chain and padlock that did not match the rusty doors. Before Manning or anyone else could stop him, Hellboy had wrenched the iron doors off their hinges and was making his way into the tomb.

"Deserted tomb that nobody cares about, what do they do?" Hellboy's voice echoed up from the tomb.

"Turn it into an evil Nazi laboratory," Abe and Hellboy said together, spooking Manning and the other agents walking in between.

"Oh, this is disgusting," Manning muttered, wiping a smear of mossy sludge off of his designer jacket as they descended into the bowels of the tomb, "Oh, and it stinks too. Great, just great…"

Hellboy paced his way through the tomb most calmly, cracking a light-tube every now and then and tossing it behind him to light the way for the rest to follow. After descending two floors and passing several potent graves, the team came to a dead end.

"Hidden entrance?" Manning suggested dryly.

"No, you just missed it," Abe smiled, standing over a man-hole in the ground, "This is the entrance. It's right beneath us."

"Well done, Blue" Hellboy smirked. The daemon wasted little time waltzing over and hauling the lid of the laboratory off.

The agents, Manning and Hellboy peered down into the hole. Surprisingly, the opening was illuminated from below.

"Here comes the monkey!" Hellboy grunted in a singsong tone, jumping down through the hole.

"After you, Dr Manning," Abe smiled pleasantly.

"Gee, thanks," Manning mumbled with a face very much more pale than it had been before.

* * *

**M**elissa drifted aimlessly from one narrow path to the next, muttering to herself about what Abe and Hellboy had done to her, '_Not allow me to go into my own father's laboratory_,' she mused resentfully, '_I have witnessed the horrors in there, not them. I know what to expect, they don't. No, they leave me out here like a child…_' she huffed, crossing her arms, '_He killed Karl…_'

The shape-shifter walked down the pathway between the winding rows of tombstones and graves, pausing occasionally to read the names of the dead or to admire the stone angels atop some of the more ornate gravestones. She could hear the distant footsteps of the agents, walking around equally as bored as she was with the task of 'finding something interesting'.

'_I need to be down there! A clue, any clue… What was I going to tell Karl Kroenen?_' Melissa raked her tender brain, searching for a memory. One of the gravestones caught her eye. Melissa wandered curiously over to the clean, marble stone. Apart from a few chips, it was in very good condition, especially for its age. "Lisa Schnitt… died February, 1984," Melissa murmured reverently, "Wife of Dr Eugen Schnitt." '_Dr Schnitt?_'

"Hmm," Melissa trudged down to the next row of gravestones, trying to find any of Dr Schnitt's other relatives. She found none, walking up and down the row of graves several times. Sighing in boredom, she continued round the corner. The noises around her had quietened. The agents' footsteps sounding very distant where she stood. Melissa strode casually over to a bench situated under an old tree, completely fed up with the cemetery, '_Nothing at all_.'

She stared straight ahead, resting her chin on her hands. After a while began to take interest in what she was staring at. Another gravestone. It was old and worn, moss starting to grow around the base of the stone, but Melissa was most intrigued by the name. '_Christine'_.

In fact, the more she stared at it, the more she started to make out of the last name as well. '_Fie_—' Melissa jumped to her feet, dashing over to the stone with a familiar dizziness making itself present in her head.

"Christine Fielding," Melissa whispered, "Born 1897, died… 1973?"

* * *

"**B**lue, you'd better check this out. Someone got here before us," Hellboy muttered, pacing the trashed laboratory. Unnamed chemicals were spilled across the floor over older stains and red streaks. Rusted cages lined one of the walls, rotten piles of bones and remains strewn throughout. In the middle of the room lay what looked like an empty iron maiden filled with tubes and strange devices in the place of metal spikes. Hellboy was glad that Mousy wasn't here to see what she had been imprisoned in for the greater part of her life—or death.

Tables had been over turned, devices of glass and metal shattered beyond repair, everything rendered useless, and it all looked fairly recent. Hellboy frowned.

"Oh my…" Abe murmured in horror behind him. Abe looked up at the wall of cages and cringed with the pain of their memories.

"Who did it?"

Abe snapped back to reality, turning his head to Hellboy inquisitively. His large blue eyes shifted to the mess before them and he cautiously approached it. Abe stretched out a webbed hand, fingers hyper-extended to better receive the psychic signals. Crouching down, Abe rested his palm on a broken pair of sinister-looking metal tongs on the laboratory floor.

Hellboy watched his comrade at work, waiting for an answer. Abe gasped and withdrew his hand, "R-Red—"

"What?"

* * *

**M**elissa staggered back from the gravestone in shock. She read the rest of the stone, which only confirmed that it had been her; the name of her father and mother etched in stone, glaring up at her. '_I wasn't there, I couldn't have died…_'

Melissa was almost in tears, '_What am I…? Who is this Christine? W-why… Abe…_' She had to find Abe. She had to find him, and he had to explain to her that this was… wrong, that the stone was wrong and she had not _died_ just over thirty years ago. She turned to run back in the direction of her father's laboratory.

Melissa's feet faltered, her shaking body freezing up as she saw him; "Karl—" the shape-shifter gasped.

Kroenen was standing at the side of the vacated bench, slightly hunched; the twin glass lenses of his mask swallowing all light and pointed directly at Melissa. With cold determination he began to stride purposefully towards the girl, his blades drawn.

"Wait," Melissa called, holding up a shaking hand. Kroenen stilled. Melissa's voice hitched in her throat, "Please, I-I'm not going to run. I know who you are, now. I remembered," Melissa smiled sadly, the emotion in her voice almost breaking through. "I had amnesia—but I remember," tears glinted in her eyes, "I do, I do. _Karl_!" she cried, running up to the assassin and throwing her arms around him. She held him tightly, feeling that not even the heavens could rip Karl Kroenen and all her memories from her again. She had found him, her blue-eyed boy.

"I'm sorry I ran—I thought," Melissa laughed, pulling back to look up at him, "I thought you were trying to k—" Melissa choked on her words. She uttered a small gasp, the colour draining from her face. Her hand went to her side; her fingers felt the cold metal blade wedged into her side and the warm, sticky blood gushing out of the wound.

Kroenen drew the blade back and swung his other around. Melissa reflexively pulled her arms up to protect herself. The blade sliced through skin, flesh and bone. Melissa screamed all she could, blood now pouring from her side and the stump of her right arm. The world rushed past her eyes and darkness swallowed her.

Kroenen aimed the blade that had first pierced Christine's side to her neck, aiming to strike. An unearthly yell sounded from behind him and Kroenen was jolted violently into the air, flying backwards from the force of Hellboy's massive punch. Kroenen landed on his back, bouncing with the force. Knowing the red ape was only a few lunges behind; Kroenen whisked himself away, hoping that the injuries he had given the shape-shifter had been fatal.

Abe let out a silent scream when he saw Melissa, lying in a pool of blood with several agents crowded around her, preforming first aid and one on a cell phone demanding the fastest ambulance team the near-by hospital had. Another agent was wrapping what remained of Melissa's right arm in gauze to prevent the blood from streaming out. _There was so much blood…_ One agent had Melissa's severed arm in a bag. '_So much blood…_'

Abe reached out with his mind to Melissa, doing everything within his power to keep her brain alive while her body lost even more blood. Abe felt two pairs of hands grab his arms and lead him quickly away from the site before the ambulance team arrived. Abe tried to protest against the agents, but knew he and Hellboy could not be seen. The ambulance crew did not need any distractions from saving Melissa's life.

Abe, Hellboy and Liz were shepherded back to the tomb that led to Dr Fielding's old laboratory. Abe stumbled along beside his friends, his mouth gaping like a goldfish stranded on land. Hellboy didn't say a word, even as Liz desperately asked them both what was going on, his crimson features contorted into a frown. Agent Myers followed them into the tomb, closing the iron gates behind the four.

"What happened to Melissa?" Liz demanded, "They were calling ambulances, what happened? Abe?"

Liz and Myers looked to the ichthyoid for answers, but Abe only shook his head sadly. He didn't want to bring those images up into his mind again. His mind's eye strained to see how Melissa's mangled form was faring.

"Kroenen got here before us," Hellboy hissed, "He trashed the lab, Blue here saw it from the broken glass down there. We didn't get back to Mousy in time; Pin-head attacked her."

'_It would have been a lot worse if we were any later_,' Abe consoled the daemon, '_You saved her life_.'

"How bad was it?" Liz asked, deeply concerned.

"Pretty bad. She lost an arm…" Hellboy looked away from Liz's terrified face, "And a lot of blood."

Abe watched despondently as Hellboy embraced Liz tightly, himself worrying his scales off for the life of his dear friend. '_Others have died of lesser injuries, what's to say she will survive the night?_'

Hellboy sighed; "I hope they know her blood type; she's gonna need it."

"She doesn't have a blood type," Abe half-wailed, "Her blood is what controls what shape she takes… if they give her blood that is not her own it could possibly damage her even further."

"…Blue?" Hellboy murmured. Abe turned his head. "How is she?"

"Alive, scarcely. They have her in the ambulance… they're driving her over to the emergency entrance of the hospital."

"Is there anyone else in the cemetery?"

"…No, only the agents. Kroenen has vanished."

"Come on," Hellboy grunted, "Back to the hotel."

"But Melissa—"

"Abe, you _know_ we can't go into that hospital like this. Manning would kill us both. C'mon, we've gotta get outta here before the police come."

"Yeah," Myers murmured numbly, turning on his walkie-talkie, "I'll call the truck."

* * *

**A/N**: Hang on to your cliffs, ladies and gentlemen! This one's a hanger!

**boogalaga:** I know! You just want to sit there and spend hours explaining the, (ahem) clockwork of it all! I just can't resist sticking a logical working order to my freaks, hehe. Do you wish them _all_ luck? Because really, what is going on with these characters? ;) Hope you enjoyed, thanks for the review!

**ToTaKeKe13:** Kroenen and Mousy… they would have been just so cute together! _Sigh_. If only, if only. Thanks for the review!

**epalladino:** Wow, thank you! Writing Kroenen is always fun, all those gory details: ) Oh dear, was I setting you all up to believe Kroenen to be not so bad, then giving you that wonderful scene where he attacks poor Mousy? What a bad llama I've been: D And it's so fun! I'm glad you enjoyed yourself; that five hours of rehearsing sounds hard!

**blade assassin:** OH YEAH: ) thanks so much; that's made my day! See, I updated quickly!

**blade assassin:** Good! Commenting on what happened in the story makes llama happy: D! Thank you kindly!

**theshadowcat:** Hehe, thanks! I most definitely will, there's only a couple of chapters left to write!

**Jonesy E.:** YAY, a new reviewer: D that was such a wonderful review, thank you _so_ much! It's reviews like that that really keep authors going, you're so flattering! Great ego-feed and incredible fuel for the writing! Danke!


	12. Who are you?

**Animal Instincts** **Psycho Llama**

**Disclaimer:** Mike Mignola owns all but mousy. Yes, that does mean Mike Mignola owns the world. Flee; flee for your lives!

* * *

**D**isgruntled patients lined the busy Munich sidewalk, complaining loudly to each other over the discomfort of being moved. They stood there, some on crutches, others in wheelchairs or lying on mobile beds, all waiting for the ambulances. Ward after ward had been emptied as the hospital was trying to deal with a 'gas leak' in one of the higher floors of the building. The patients, so consumed by their own ailments, failed to notice the garbage truck pulling up in the hospital's driveway behind them.

Dr Schnitt strode awkwardly down the sterile corridors, one of the nurses right on his polished heels as they made their way down the stairs to the back entrance of the hospital. Dr Schnitt was bristling with irritation as he spoke on his old, brick-like cellphone; "Ja, ja, all the patients in the intensive care unit have been helicoptered to the other hospitals. …Nein, she is still in critical condition, I don't know how long we can keep her alive."

"Alright; we're gonna bring in Red and Blue," spoke Myers on the other end of the phone, "You'll have to open the rear-entrance doors so we can get in; they can't be seen by the public."

Dr Schnitt felt his walrus-moustache twitch, '_Leave it to that little girl to find friends just as abnormal as she is_.' "Fine, fine, bring them in!" Schnitt snapped, tossing the cellphone carelessly to the nurse following him. The nurse erupted into hurried German, asking the doctor why he was refusing a blood-transplant for their only patient, the little girl in the intensive care unit.

"Well what did the blood test say?" Schnitt barked angrily.

"O Negative," the nurse quipped.

Schnitt stopped in his tracks; '_She has a blood type?_'

"Doktor, she will die without blood."

"Fine, give her the blood. But if her condition declines, stop the blood." The nurse nodded at the command and hurried off to get the blood ready.

Dr Schnitt continued on his way to the ambulance entrance of the hospital, checking his watch every two seconds out of habit, the time not registering even once in his mind. As he rounded the last corner the doctor felt a slight tremor shake the building, then another. They felt like the footsteps of a small elephant running on its hind legs.

Dr Schnitt, clinging to the side of the wall, almost had a heart-attack as a giant red monkey in pants sped past him, the hospital shaking with every one of his massive steps.

The ape turned his head to glance at Schnitt and recognition sparked in the creature's yellow eyes; "Hey, you're that guy—Dr Schnitt, right?"

The doctor nodded his head timidly, double chins trembling in fear. Hellboy gripped the tiny man by his shoulders; "Where's Mousy—Melissa?"

Dr Schnitt suddenly scowled, "Let go of me!" Hellboy released the doctor's shoulders and stood a pace back. "Thank you; she's in the intensive care unit upstairs. _You_ must be what those Americans were calling '_Red_'. Try not to rattle the building so when you walk, you could kill Melissa with all that banging about."

Hellboy turned a darker shade of red but followed the doctor's lead without protest. The agents caught up with them a few feet later, black boots squeaking against the polished floor as the group scrambled after Hellboy and the doctor. Abe was running along behind them with all the grace of a cougar crossed with a frog.

"Oh Lord…" Schnitt muttered upon seeing the ichthyoid.

"Hey; you got a problem with him, you've got a problem with me," Hellboy growled, knocking Schnitt's shoulder with his stone arm.

Schnitt ignored the threat, approaching the elevator. The metallic doors slid open to reveal a carriage already occupied by a handful of agents and Elizabeth Sherman. Schnitt's white moustache bristled; "I thought all of the patients had to be evacuated!"

Liz mirrored his scowl with one of her own; "I'm not a patient; I'm a visitor."

"Liz," Hellboy grinned, squeezing in the crowded elevator as the agents shuffled around to give the daemon more room. Schnitt stepped back, but Hellboy yanked the doctor in, just managing to fit the portly man in before the doors shut.

"I hope you weigh less than 200lbs," Schnitt muttered sourly. The elevator shuddered a little at the heavy load.

"How is she?" Liz asked quietly.

"Dying," the doctor snapped, "She tested as O negative, we are giving her blood—"

"You can't do that! It'll kill her!" Liz protested suddenly. Schnitt felt Hellboy's luminous eyes bearing down on him.

"If the nurses see trouble, they will stop the transition."

"What about her vital organs?" Myers piped up, his voice muffled from being wedged between the wall of the elevator and Hellboy's back, "Were any of those damaged in the attack?"

"Whatever attacked Melissa missed all of her internal organs. The wound is already beginning the healing process, but she has lost too much blood to be able to save herself," Schnitt sighed.

"What are her chances?"

"If she were a mere mortal like the rest of us, she would have been dead on arrival. I have no idea how to save her or how long she will live."

The elevator jolted to a still and the steel doors slid open, Schnitt hurried out of them and scuttled hurriedly towards the intensive care unit; a demon-man, the demon-man's girlfriend and a handful of American agents in black suits hot on his heels.

Abe was already in Melissa's room, bent over her unconscious form feeling the air around her body; a handful of nurses huddled in the opposite corner of the room almost in hysterics.

"Blue? How'd you do that?"

"Took the stairs."

"How is she?"

Abe shook his head, "I can't tell. Her body is not rejecting the blood, but I do not know what the consequences will be on her… abilities."

One of the nurses was shrieking at the sight of Hellboy, but one withering glare from the daemon shut her up. "What about her arm?"

"She has lost it forever. They tried extracting blood from it to try and save her, but they couldn't get enough to make a significant transition.

"Crap…" Hellboy looked down sadly on Melissa's sickly white face. The stump that reached halfway to where her elbow should have been had been sewn up and bandaged, red blood and yellow iodine staining the white gauze. A terrible scar ran along Melissa's midriff surrounded by purple blotches on her skin.

"That Nazi _bastard_," Hellboy hissed angrily, red nostrils flaring, "When I get my hands on that—"

"I don't understand why Kroenen would want to kill her… not after reading those letters he sent her…" Abe murmured. '_Why did he do it? Why does he hate her **so** much?_'

"If there is a way you can save Melissa it's going to be in that laboratory you found earlier. Yes, I heard it through one of your agents, that talkative fellow…"

Abe met Hellboy's eyes with calm, "You decide Red; but remember, we haven't got that much time."

Hellboy nodded, "We'll go. Liz?" The raven-haired lady leaning against the doorframe looked up. "You stay here with Mousy; call us if anything goes wrong, okay?"

"Yes sir," Liz smirked.

"C'mon Dumpy, you're coming too," Hellboy growled, shoving the doctor along in front of him.

Liz wandered over to the side of Melissa's bed, looking down sadly at the girl she had hardly been aquainted with. She distantly heard Dr Schnitt yelling out '_Unhand me, sir!_' further down the corridor.

"You'll be okay, won't you," Liz smiled quietly, pulling up a chair beside the hospital bed.

Unbeknownst to the pyrokinetic, an obsidian figure hovered in the shadows of the overhanging roof, blending with the absence of light. Kroenen waited, knowing he couldn't very well enter the building while Hellboy was still inside. The red daemon was the only one capable of defeating him in combat; he could not be allowed to interfere with his plans.

Slowly, unfurling like a spider, Kroenen crept down the stone wall, defying gravity in every way possible. Wrapping his leather-clad fingers around the window ledge, Kroenen pulled himself into the blind spot of the window. Inside he could see the pyrokinetic ladylove of Hellboy… and Christine.

* * *

"**M**y Lord; look at this mess!" Dr Schnitt exclaimed, stepping over broken glass and spilled chemicals.

"Tell me about it. So, Doctor, where do we start?" Hellboy asked, accidentally knocking another glass beaker onto the floor with a tinkle of shattering glass.

"See if this doctor who did this kept a journal or some kind of documentary of his method… where's your, uh, fish?"

"Upstairs. This place gives him the creeps, too much death," Hellboy murmured, picking through the messy ruins of the laboratory.

Dr Schnitt dusted his hand over a packed bookshelf, revealing the gold-lettered spines of several German medical books. "Hmm," his podgy fingers stroked the leather spines.

Hellboy made his way over to the sarcophagus-like machine in the centre of the room, lifting up one of the severed pipes in his hand and examining it. The pipe was of black plastic, dried red stains clinging to the edges and sides. Hellboy's brows creased and he tugged experimentally on the tube, '_Where's this lead to…?_'

"Found the journal," Dr Schnitt announced, sliding the book out of the crammed bookcase.

"Good start," Hellboy nodded, walking over to the old man.

Dr Schnitt flipped through the book; "What date are you looking for?"

"Abe said 7/6 was when she ran away."

"7/5… was the day of the 'operation'," Schnitt frowned, "That doesn't sound right…"

"Abe said that she was caught by her father on the night she tried to run away, then he operated on her." Hellboy shrugged, "Could've got the day wrong. Even _I_ can't remember what the date is today. It's not like there's a calendar down here or anything," Hellboy shrugged.

"The day wrong? Oh, I forget, you're _American_, aren't you?" Schnitt stiffened, "Americans write the month before the day. Europeans…" Schnitt pointed at Dr Feilding's writing, "…write the day before the month. This is in June. The date in Melissa's diary would have been in July."

"How can that work? You're saying Christine ran away _after_ her crazy father turned her into a freak and locked her away in this thing? And without noticing? Abe said Melissa went right through her diary. Nothing, _nothing_, mentions anything about her father or her father's lab; even before this."

"I don't understand this either, this is very… unusual…" Dr Schnitt sighed, his walrus moustache fluttering, "We need your fish-friend's help on this; perhaps he can read into the entry a little more."

* * *

"**D**id you tell Dr Schnitt about the laboratory?" Abe asked agent Myers casually.

"No," John replied indignantly.

Abe blinked his deep eyes in wonderment; "…You didn't…" '_But Dr Schnitt was referring to Myers. Did he lie?_' "Did you ring Dr Schnitt before you and Hellboy arrived in Germany to see if Melissa was in the hospital?"

Myers' cheeks flushed, "Uh, no. I kind of… forgot to ring him. Abe? You okay?"

"Hey Blue," Hellboy called from within the crypt, emerging into the overcast daylight, "We found Dr Feilding's diary. This says he started the experiment a month before Mousy went missing—what is that?"

"M-Melissa… this is her grave. Right there, where Kroenen attacked her. Christine Fielding… died 1973." Abe was visibly trembling, his gills flapping wildly in an attempt to attain more air from the water in his respirator.

"_What_? I thought you said she was in that lab until somewhere in the 90s," Hellboy stared in shock at the mossy stone grave, "You sure you got the right Christine?"

"I… yes," Abe nodded. The ichthyoid looked at the ground, mouth slightly open as he tried to formulate the words to speak; "Red, b-before we left to find her I found, I found something…"

"What?"

"These photos," Abe reached into his belt, obviously flustered, "I didn't understand them at first… they don't seem possible… but they're real." The ichthyoid pulled out a handful of folded photocopied papers, handing them to Hellboy.

Hellboy took the papers in his left hand and carefully unfolded them. When he saw the image on the paper, the daemon inhaled sharply, "…It's Mousy…"

"That was taken in the '60s," Abe explained solemnly, "_Before_ she was found by Dr Schnitt."

Hellboy squinted, "But she's an old lady… you can't just—"

Dr Schnitt snatched the photo away. The old man looked down at the rough print-out, squinting; "I know this woman."

"Yeah, she's lying on the bed in the hospital," Hellboy snarled.

"No; this was my mother."

* * *

_**M**elissa looked around herself; the world was inky black and devoid of matter, nothing existed but empty space. She was a young girl again, and yet, so different. She felt an ache in her gut as the digestive acids burned through her stomach lining; she hadn't eaten in days. Pressing a hand to her waist, she could feel her ribs easily through the rags she wore. Her face was deathly white, as it always had been; she grew away from the sunlight._

_Then she saw a mirror, a square piece of dirty glass hanging in the nothingness. Melissa stumbled towards it, but frowned at the reflection. It was she, the girl figured; but instead of facing herself, her reflection faced away from her. She moved closer, but the figure did not move. It was not a mirror, but a window._

_Who was that in the window? It was her in the window, surely… she could see herself in the dirty sheen of the glass, the ghost of a reflection, and she looked identical to the girl in the window. Though, was the girl slightly older? _

_She could hear her father's steady mantra reverberating through her head, '_I made you. I made you better. I took out what was wrong and made you. You are perfect; you are pure. There is no wrongness in you; I made you.'

* * *

**A/N:** Creepy? Ooh, don't you just love the twists? ; ) sorry for the shortness of the chapter, and the long delay, and the cliff-hangers! (I know you all hate me now, hehe) I'll write more when I am given the time, whenever that may be. Thank you kind reviewers for all you support and enthusiasm. Sorry for the short responses, there isn't much time!

**epalladino:** But if Kroenen _was_ in love with Melissa, what could have made him hate her so?

**firepup:** : D love you, mate.

**theshadowcat:** I would hurry, but I have no time any more and exams are coming! I will write as often as possible!

**blade assassin:** Thank you: ) reviews with relation to context are always great fun to read, Danke!

**Bleeding Grey:** Wow! First of all, thanks for the flattering comment, secondly… you're name is Melissa AND your nickname is Mousy? I must be stalking you or something! Can you change into animals, by any chance?

**ToTaKeKe13:** Ooh, what will happen? What will happen?

**daydreamingal:** Why thank you! I feel loved: )

**boogalaga**: Why indeed? That, my friend, will hopefully be revealed in the next chapter, stay tuned!

**BeastBoyBlitz:** The more you write, the better you become! Be like a sponge and absorb all the writing you can! (Mostly from published books so you don't pick up bad, unedited habits from me, lol) Hehe, I just couldn't refuse that quip, not even Mike Mignola owns Kroenen's ass! Haha!

**Gestalt:** She's not dead, yet. ; ) you liked those plot twist? Well, there's plenty more where that came from!

**Blu Embyr:** Oh wow! All those reviews! You've just completely made my day: D I'm so glad I made you laugh, I love making others laugh, it's mostly why I write fanfiction, lol! And Dr Schnitt is supposed to be alive, it's just his wife that died there… but who are his parents? The plot thickens! Thank you so much for all those reviews, they were wonderful!

**FlyingFish15:** It was more of a cling than a hug, really. She was embracing Kroenen as the embodiment of all that she had lost and that she longed to have back. Kroenen was probably a little shocked that she hugged him, hence his slow reaction. You see, some fangirls just aren't as lucky as my wee Mary Sue there ; )


	13. Fin

**Animal Instincts**

_**Psycho Llama**_

**Disclaimer:** Mike Mignola owns all but mousy. Yes, that does mean Mike Mignola owns the world. Flee; flee for your lives!

* * *

"…**Y**our mother?" Hellboy grunted.

"Yes. Christine Schnitt; she chose to be buried under her maiden name," Dr Schnitt inhaled sharply, "I think she knew…"

Hellboy narrowed his eyes at the squat, elderly man; "Knew what?"

"About the laboratory," Schnitt grimaced, "And your friend…"

Abe made a strangled sound of disbelief, his face had gone periwinkle with shock, "It was _you_ that found Melissa?"

"Alright, somebody tell me what's going on," Hellboy demanded, "Now!"

"I found your friend Melissa a few years ago when I was visiting Lisa, my late wife… There had always been a rumour about Dr Fielding's secret Munich laboratory; my mother, Christine, believed that it was located somewhere in this cemetery. I was walking to my mother's grave when I saw this-this man clothed entirely in black standing over Christine's grave—"

"Kroenen," Abe murmured quietly.

"I had no idea what he was doing. It was so strange—the man wore a mask and was dressed like, like…"

"A Nazi?" Hellboy growled.

Schnitt cringed; "Yes. I watched him; he was walking around with a map trying to find something, the tomb that Dr Fielding worked in, of course. He found it, broke into the tomb and vanished inside. I heard a sound—"

"Kroenen yelling," Abe interrupted, probing the old man's memory, "And then crashes… it was Kroenen trashed the laboratory, all those years ago."

"What about Mousy?"

"I waited until the man had left and I went down into the tomb. It was dark by then," Schnitt fidgeted nervously, "They said Dr Fielding was very advanced in his methods and had discovered many scientific wonders that had been lost with his death,"

"You were trying to find something in there to make you rich," Abe accused softly.

"I found your friend. I saw her body lying in that sarcophagus… all those tubes running out of her… she had no pulse but she was warm to the touch and the liquid inside of the tubes looked as if it were moving at a steady rate in and out of her body. I picked up a scalpel, cut the tubes and carried her to the hospital," Dr Schnitt reported grimly.

"So _you_ broke into the hospital, your hospital?"

'_To avoid suspicion that might trace him back to his discovery_,' Abe sent the mental message directly to Hellboy.

"Yes, I broke in… she had no heartbeat. I called the nurse and we brought her back. Melissa lived. S-she looked so much like my mother did, when she was younger, I couldn't leave her," Schnitt protested.

"Mousy went in search of who she was, why didn't you tell her?"

"I couldn't! I didn't understand!"

Abe gasped, staring off into space; his head jerked towards Schnitt, "You talked to Kroenen, on the phone."

"N-no!" Schnitt uttered in disbelief.

"It was Kroenen that called you, asked where Melissa was, not the BPRD… Kroenen knows where Melissa is," Abe stated, feeling the liquid in his veins freeze and tingle.

Hellboy swore. The red daemon grabbed the old man by the cuff, yanking him before him and up the stairs. Abe had already darted ahead of them, startling the agents waiting above them.

* * *

**L**iz staggered backwards; struggling to breathe as the spider-like form of Kroenen crawled through the broken window, sand hissing through the clockwork mechanisms of his organs.

"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God," Liz whispered, terrified.

Kroenen surveyed the pyrokinetic with cold indifference and turned his attention to the injured figure lying in the hospital bed. Melissa's eyes were open and staring at him as if he were a ghost, which wasn't far from the truth.

Liz saw Melissa was awake, "M-Melissa!" she choked out.

Melissa snapped out of the trance, she struggled to sit up as Kroenen stalked towards her. Melissa turned her severed arm away from him instinctively. She drew in a weak breath; "What do you want? Why are you trying to kill me?"

"It's what you are, Christine. That is why I must kill you," Kroenen hissed with a dry voice, heavily accented by the assassin's lack of lips.

"I am not Christine," Melissa stressed, "My name is Melissa. Christine is _dead_; I am not her, I never was her. I am her genetic copy. Her clone."

Kroenen didn't move. The only sound in the room the soft ticking of clockwork within the Nazi killer.

"But I am still my mother's child," Melissa stated carefully, narrowing her eyes, "And I support her views."

"You dig your own grave."

"At least I will have one," Melissa replied firmly.

"That you will," Kroenen agreed scathingly.

Kroenen began speaking in German, Melissa hissing back in an equally rapid pace. Liz couldn't understand what they were saying. The pyrotechnic knew she hat to intercept before Kroenen was given the opportunity to strike at her.

"You can't kill her just because she's different! Nazi hypocrite!" Liz yelled, her eyes glowing with a fiery spark. Behind her back, Liz's hands balled into fists. Kroenen's masked head swivelled slowly and threateningly in Liz's direction. Liz's anger was abruptly dosed by fear.

"Christine got away, didn't she? She ran away—and then she went to find you. Did she tell you?" Melissa asked, steering Kroenen's attention away from Liz. Kroenen moved towards Melissa's bed, brandishing his knives.

"Of course she did, that's why you were trying to kill me. But she got away, even though she didn't have the shape-shifting modifications, she got away from you."

Kroenen's black leather encased fist struck Melissa's face suddenly, forcing the girl's head backward. Melissa cringed away as a dark welt formed on her cheek.

"Hey!" Liz shouted, fists balling at her sides.

Kroenen ignored her; "You know _nothing_!"

"No _you_ don't know anything! She loved you! You loved her, and you threw it all away for a technicality!" Melissa shrilled.

Kroenen raised the back of his hand again and Melissa flinched backwards.

Liz squeezed her fists tighter and flames flickered to life. The pyrokinetic marched towards Kroenen, the flames engulfing her arms, "Back away from her you—"

* * *

"**D**o you think we're going to make it in time?" Abe babbled anxiously, climbing out of the garbage truck behind Hellboy.

"Well—" Hellboy started, equally worried about Liz. An explosion shook the ground shortly followed by an ear-splitting crash as a ball of fire erupted from a window on one of the higher floors of the evacuated hospital.

Hellboy watched unemotionally as the flaming black figure crashed to the ground, knowing it was Kroenen, "Looks like the party's started without us."

* * *

"**F**ire extinguisher! Above your head!" Liz yelled out in frustration. The pyrokinetic was barely keeping the flames within her from obliterating the entire hospital. The shape-shifter on the bed stretched her arm upward to the fire extinguisher and knocked it off its perch.

The red cylinder fell heavily on the bed and Melissa fumbled to get it into a position where she could aim it accurately at Liz with only one arm. Her willowy fingers slid the pin out of the head and she clenched the release lever with all her meek strength.

Thick white foam hit Liz square in the face; she squeezed her eyes shut against the sting and felt the foam douse her head and shoulders, sliding sickly down her back and dripping onto the floor. Liz reached up and clawed the foam out of her eyes; "Thanks."

"Thank _you_," Melissa smiled quietly, "You just saved my life… I guess that makes it everyone in the bureau by now."

Liz chuckled, "Well he deserved it… I-I mean—"

"He loved _Christine_."

"What about you?"

"I didn't exist. I wasn't even physically alive until a few years ago," Melissa laughed nervously, "Abe must have been reviving Christine's memories…"

"But you said that he loved you—you're clone… I mean; you, the clone of… something," Liz gave up trying to make sense.

Melissa laid back on the ruffled bedding, no longer able to support her throbbing head, "They were in love, but Kroenen was… very antisematic, even before the Nazis." Melissa closed her eyes; "After Kroenen went to fight in the Great War I—Christine tried to find out about her mother, who apparently died of tuberculosis in London, when Christine was little. She was Jewish; my father murdered her when he found out."

"Oh God…" Liz whispered in horror.

"Killing Mother almost destroyed him. He went mad. He created me in an attempt to 'cleanse' his daughter. Christine ran away before he could kill her too, but I don't think he could have done it. Christine was worried what to tell Kroenen; she knew he'd kill her too if he knew."

"And she told him?"

"I don't know… If she did, then I guess he loved her enough at the time to let her escape," Melissa sighed, "His hatred must have festered into something evil over the years… and then he saw me."

Liz stared sadly at the battered shape-shifter, trying to think of something comforting to say that didn't sound like too much of a cliché.

Melissa turned her head to the raven-haired lady, "Is he dead?"

"I'll check." Liz turned and leaned her foamy torso out of the broken window, carefully avoiding the melted glass shards jutting out of the frame. Floors below on the dull concrete floor lay a pile of black ash, scorch marks on the side of the surrounding buildings mapping his downwards flight. "He looks pretty crispy. All I can see is a black pile of dust."

"Liz!"

The thundering of heavy footsteps gave way to a loud baritone as Hellboy yelled her name down the corridor. Liz stepped away from the window, "In here!"

Hellboy's massive red frame came into view, "Liz; you alright?"

"Fine, fine," Liz nodded, still half-covered in fire extinguisher foam. She smirked and ran up to the daemon and gave him a bear hug, "Where's a big red lummox when you need one? We had to defeat Kroenen all on our own, you know."

"Yeah, I saw the fireworks. Ah great, now I've got white foam crap on me."

"It washes out," Liz smiled.

"How's Mousy holding up?"

"She's alive."

"Hey," Melissa called lamely, waving her bandaged stump of an arm.

"Good job on killing pin-head," Hellboy smiled quietly to Liz, who shrugged; "It was a team effort."

Abe's head poked its way around the doorframe; "Melissa?"

The shape-shifter's head turned, a silly grin growing on her pale face, "Abe—"

"We shouldn't have left, I know! We didn't know that Kroenen was still out there and we didn't leave any backup, I know, but we know never to do that in future—"

"Stop it!" Melissa laughed, "It's okay; Liz fired him."

Abe blinked both sets of eyelids, "You remembered…"

Melissa nodded, "Yeah, timing couldn't have been better either." She stretched her arm out to hug the ichthyoid and was promptly smothered by blue fish.

"So, you're a clone then, are you?" Hellboy stated from across the room, lighting a cigar right beside a 'no smoking' sign. Melissa nodded silently on Abe's shoulder. Hellboy took a long drag from the cigar and puffed it skywards. Hellboy chuckled; "I guess that means you bet Dolly to first sheep way back."

Melissa laughed softly, hugging Abe tighter.

A trail of the smoke from Hellboy's cigar wandered harmlessly up into the ceiling and triggered the sprinkler system. Hellboy made a pouty face at the sight of his soggy cigar.

"They found Kroenen's… remains," Myers announced from the doorway, holding a bunch of papers above his head to avoid getting wet; "All that's left is the clockwork; it looks kinda cool actually."

"Off his head, just to be sure," Hellboy ordered, muttering to himself, "Damn pin-head never stays down."

"Well that's when you fought him, Red. Melissa and I managed to dispose of him without even breaking a sweat," Liz smirked coyly in the rain of the sprinkler system.

"He hit you," Abe murmured, examining the dark bruise on Melissa's face.

"Just don't touch it," the shape-shifter scalded, jerking her head back.

"I'm glad you're alright…"

Melissa's smile softened, "Me too."

The ichthyoid slipped undetected into her mind, filing through the events that had just passed. He heard the German words Kroenen had spoken to Melissa; '_I know what your father did, Christine. He cleansed you. As long as you purify your thoughts there is nothing I can hold against you. I've missed you for so long, Christine_.'

'_I am not Christine and I do not care if you miss her; you chose prejudice over love, how you suffer is your own problem, don't try to pull me into it_.'

'_I thought you remembered whom you were, Christine. You certainly gave the impression of it_.'

'_You almost ruined Christine's life and you've hunted me almost to extinction. Go to hell_.'

* * *

**Epilogue **

"Dr Foreman? How is she?"

"She's recovering, Abe, just like she was five minutes ago," the blonde woman gently admonished.

The ichthyoid relaxed back into his seat, ignoring the burn of his parched skin sticking to the warm leather; "Will she be able to grow her arm back?"

Dr Foreman shrugged her small shoulders, "I don't know, Abe. I don't know if she will ever be able to change her shape or do any of those fancy tricks ever again, who knows. She might change into an animal and get stuck that way. The surgeons weren't able to find anything that could help her; they're as much in the dark about this as you and I."

Abe sighed dejectedly, resting his chin on his hands. Dr Foreman looked sceptically at the fish-man; "Abe… how long have you been out of your tank?"

"Not—"

"I want you back in it, right now," Dr Foreman smirked coyly, "It's not going to make her any better knowing that you're shrivelling up for her."

The ichthyoid scowled darkly up at the squat woman half his height. He stood up slowly, the clammy skin of his thighs sticking to the chair before peeling painfully away from the leather surface.

"I'll call you if there's any progress in Melissa's health, alright?"

"Please do so. I will be in my tank," Abe replied moodily, stalking off in the direction of the library.

**

* * *

**

**A**be climbed sluggishly up the spiral staircase leading to his tank, '_What if she never heals completely? What if she can no longer change her shape? Will Manning order her out?_' Abe slipped gracefully into the water, sighing contentedly as the cool liquid soothed his itching skin.

Two hands with vice-like grips grabbed Abe roughly from behind. Bubbles erupted from Abe's mouth as he cried out in shock and spun about—and came nose-to-nose with a mermaid. Melissa laughed silently, the gills on her neck fluttering. Abe simply stared at her with his jaw hanging loose.

The shape-shifter grinned; it was obvious that she had gotten the mix right. While she tried to replicate how Abe looked, she had kept her chestnut hair and kept her palms smooth. Dark green freckles in similar formations to Abe's stripes accented her light peppermint skin. Melissa blinked both sets of eyelids over her large, grey eyes. She blushed; "It is _really_ hard to find a swimsuit that doesn't squash the fins, isn't it?"

**Fin**

**

* * *

**

Thank you everyone for all your **wonderful** reviews: D I wouldn't have made it to the end without you guys! Hoped you like the trip; it was a huge amount of fun to write! If anyone wants me, I'm on Deviant Art as psycho-llama. or email me at ahyland Your hopes have been answered! It has been carried on, and finished : )

**epalladino:** Thank you so much! Don't worry, I'll try to vet my words more carefully, and no more innocent characters shall be aquatinted! I fixed the error, thank you again!

**ToTaKeKe13:** :D thank you!

**Flyingfish15:** Lol, I hope that I remembered to explain everything…

**Blu Embyr:** It's fin! Thank you for reading!

**theshadowcat:** Aw, thank you!

**amyltrer:** Oh yes! You read my mind! Everyone else is worried about how they are going to ever stop Kroenen and then Liz just goes boom. Bada boom. Hope you like!

**Firepup:** glomp luff!

**blade assassin:** Thanks for reading: D

**lt. commander richie:** Thank you! Hope all is made clear now!

And thank you to **Owlet** for your email: D it is much appreciated!


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